Chapter 266: Blood War Battlefield Situation

The White Dragon Lord frowned in thought. Coaxing the Lord of Gloom into voluntarily lifting the curse was impossible, leaving a Demon Origin as their only hope.

A Demon Origin was the equivalent of a flesh-and-blood creature's lifeblood. Since the Lord of Gloom was already a veteran abyssal lord, the sheer difficulty of defeating a demon even stronger than him to seize its origin was unimaginable. Even if Merlin Heavenly Principle risked his life, he might not succeed.

In that light, the curse on Grand Duke Silver Dragon was practically unsolvable. The White Dragon Lord's frown deepened.

The Silver Dragon Scholar offered some comfort.

"Don't worry. The Council has long since reached out to friends in the Star Realm to watch for any news of a Demon Origin. If a suitable one surfaces, they will buy it at any cost."

Realizing he had boxed himself into a logical trap, the White Dragon Lord's brow slowly relaxed.

It made sense. Even if Merlin Heavenly Principle fell short, the endless multiverse still harbored existences capable of defeating the Lord of Gloom. Some of them might even have spare Demon Origins on hand.

Furthermore, the number of powerful ancient demons who had fallen over the eons wasn't exactly large, but it wasn't small either. If they could track down the remains of one, Grand Duke Silver Dragon could be saved.

The three dragons set aside the heavy topic of the curse and fell into a pleasant chat, swapping tales of their respective travels.

Of the three, the Silver Dragon Scholar had traversed the most worlds and possessed the broadest knowledge. The bizarre tales he recounted truly opened the White Dragon Lord's eyes.

Through the scholar's stories, the White Dragon Lord finally learned that the silver dragon was not native to Nordhill at all. Eight thousand years ago, he had been gravely wounded in the Star Realm. A powerhouse from Nordhill had saved him, bringing him back to recover, and he had simply settled down here ever since.

According to the Silver Dragon Scholar, his savior had been a High-Tier Legend copper dragon. Yet, the White Dragon Lord had never heard of such a figure residing in Nordhill.

That was to be expected. To a High-Tier Legend, Nordhill was entirely too peaceful. To achieve breakthroughs through slaughter, one had to seek out places where danger walked hand-in-hand with opportunity. The Star Realm was the premier destination for adventuring powerhouses.

Over a span of 10,000 years, the accumulated number of High-Tier Legends who had left Nordhill likely eclipsed the total number of Council members.

Some of these departing powerhouses were lone wolves; others were faction leaders.

Even with their core pillars gone, their descendants and the organizations they had established still endured. Nordhill currently housed eight such factions.

They lacked the protection of a resident High-Tier Legend, but no one dared wipe them out. After all, nobody could be certain whether their High-Tier Legend ancestors were actually dead.

A portion of those expatriate High-Tier Legends maintained ties with the Council. They made up a chunk of the "friends in the Star Realm" the Silver Dragon Scholar had mentioned.

Once the Silver Dragon Scholar finished his tales, the White Dragon Lord shared his own experiences from the Elemental Plane of Ice.

The Winter Legion of the Elemental Plane of Ice was notoriously xenophobic and shrouded in mystery to outsiders, so the other two dragons listened with rapt attention.

As the youngest, the White Dragon Lord didn't have many exploits to boast about and quickly wrapped up. Finally, it was Grand Duke Silver Dragon's turn.

Grand Duke Silver Dragon leaned back in his wooden chair, shifting into a more comfortable position.

"Then I shall speak of the Bottomless Abyss."

The White Dragon Lord perked up to listen. In sixty-four years, it would be time for him to head to the first layer of the Bottomless Abyss—the Blood War Battlefield—and fulfill his duties as a Council member.

It was exactly for this reason that Grand Duke Silver Dragon chose to share his knowledge of the Abyss.

"When discussing the Bottomless Abyss, one must first touch upon planar consciousness. Just as living creatures possess a mind, a plane possesses its own awareness. However, planar consciousness doesn't operate like the thoughts of intelligent beings like us. Rather than a consciousness, it is better described as a set of rules."

The White Dragon Lord nodded. "Rules" was just how this magical world phrased it; in the vernacular of his past life, it would be a "program."

Grand Duke Silver Dragon organized his thoughts and continued.

"Because a planar will acts entirely on rules, it lacks desires and emotions like joy, anger, or sorrow. But in a multiverse of countless planes, exceptions exist—namely, the Bottomless Abyss and the Nine-Layered Celestial Mountain. Setting the latter aside for now, the planar will of the Bottomless Abyss actually birthed its own sentience. Its will is saturated with chaos and slaughter, which invariably tainted the creatures residing within it, gradually warping them into the demons of today."

"According to records etched into ancient Stone Slabs, the Bottomless Abyss originally comprised only a scant few layers. It reached its current scale by using demons to invade other worlds, devouring an untold number of material planes."

"No one knows exactly how many layers the Bottomless Abyss holds. The number is in constant flux. Once those demon-invaded planes are dragged into the Abyss, they become a part of it. Some planes remain intact and form a brand-new layer, while others shatter entirely, becoming planar wreckage adrift in the abyssal void. Whatever their fate, every one of those planes strengthens the Bottomless Abyss."

The White Dragon Lord pondered this. Grand Duke Silver Dragon's words revealed a crucial detail: although people frequently referred to the "so-and-so layer of the Abyss," the Bottomless Abyss wasn't neatly stacked layer by layer. It was a colossal cluster of interconnected planes.

Grand Duke Silver Dragon pressed on.

"The more planes the Bottomless Abyss devours, the more living space its demons gain, and the stronger their forces grow. If left to expand unchecked, the entire multiverse will one day be swallowed by the Bottomless Abyss."

"Even the most evil of deities balked at that prospect. In the ancient era, The Gods struck an agreement to halt the Abyss's expansion, working in concert to reinforce the spatial boundaries surrounding the Bottomless Abyss."

"Yet even the sturdiest cage carries the risk of bursting. Thus, while fortifying the 'walls' of the Bottomless Abyss, The Gods deliberately left a single gap: the first layer of the Abyss—the Blood War Battlefield."

"Only from the Blood War Battlefield can the Demon Army freely march into the myriad realms. Outside of that specific gap, any demon wishing to cross into another world must pay an astronomical price."

Dawn broke in the White Dragon Lord's mind. If the Bottomless Abyss was sealed entirely, the demons couldn't get out and The Gods couldn't get in. Leaving a horde of demons to thrash about inside meant they would eventually shatter the cage. By then, the long-suppressed fiends would erupt like a volcano choked with boiling magma.

Rather than letting the demons stockpile power in a sealed prison, it was far safer to grind their strength down bit by bit. So, The Gods turned the first layer of the Abyss into a battlefield and poured immense manpower into garrisoning it.

Upon discovering intruders in their own home—and a band of detestable, lawful good interlopers at that—the chaotic evil demons wouldn't be demons if they didn't grab their weapons and rush headlong into the slaughter.

"The Gods use this method to bleed the demon race, but bleeding demons through a war of attrition is simultaneously bleeding themselves."

"That was the case until a mighty demon lord contacted The Gods and brokered a pact. That powerful demon was none other than the Lord of Hell—Edius. What followed was a cataclysm that shook the multiverse: Edius tore nine layers of the Abyss completely free from abyssal control. Even the foundational laws within those nine layers were rewritten."

"Edius announced to the cosmos that his race would henceforth be known as devils, and the nine layers were rechristened as Bator Hell, with him as its sovereign. From that day on, the devils' Bator Hell stood as its own independent realm within the Abyss."

"Devils are of the lawful evil alignment, and the sole exit to Bator Hell just so happens to open into the first layer of the Abyss. Thus, to ensure their own survival, the devils had no choice but to join the fray and fend off the demons."

Grand Duke Silver Dragon accepted a teacup from an Iron Golem butler, took a delicate sip, and continued.

"Ever since, the Blood War Battlefield has been divided into three major powers: demons, devils, and The Gods. With the devils entering the war, The Gods withdrew a massive chunk of their forces. That forged the current dynamic—the demons as the dominant superpower, matched only by the combined front of the devils and The Gods. The stalemate has persisted to this very day."

"The Divine Factions are further split into three branches. The first consists of The Gods' direct divine legions, composed of angels, petitioners, and divine envoys. They form the vanguard against the demons and lay claim to the vast majority of the fortresses."

"The second branch is made up of planar mercenaries who fight purely for profit. Their sole trade is hunting demons to harvest the lucrative materials from their corpses. It is a wildly mixed bag of rogues who occasionally stir up trouble, but by and large, their contributions far outweigh their liabilities."

"The third branch is our Avengers Alliance, formed entirely by victims of demonic invasions. We fight for revenge, networking with fellow victims so that if our planes ever face a demon invasion again, we can call upon our allies for aid."

The White Dragon Lord nodded. This Alliance was essentially a union of the weak huddling together for warmth.

Naturally, "weak" was strictly relative to the demon horde. Any plane capable of repelling an abyssal invasion was far from simple; therefore, the actual strength of this Alliance was immense.

"Senior, could you shed some light on the internal structure of the Alliance?"

The White Dragon Lord was slated to serve his mandatory tour under the banner of this very Alliance, so its internal workings were of paramount concern to him.

"That old codger Merlin was supposed to brief you on this before you deployed. Since you're asking now, I suppose I can handle it in his stead."

"At the core of the Alliance lie five immensely powerful planes. The raw might of these five planes eclipses all others, elevating them into the Alliance's decision-making layer. Our Nordhill is one of them."

Grand Duke Silver Dragon spoke with evident pride.

"The Alliance operates on a voting system. Each of the five planes wields a single vote to dictate all major affairs. And since it is an Alliance, it requires a figurehead. This leadership role rotates among the five planes, shifting once every 1,000 years."

"The Alliance controls a total of 28 fortresses across the Blood War Battlefield. Ten of these sit perilously close to the demon borders, so the five ruling planes each garrison two."

The White Dragon Lord recalled that each deployment rotation grouped two Council members together. They must be the ones defending those two respective fortresses.

Sure enough, Grand Duke Silver Dragon's next words confirmed his suspicion.

"Under normal circumstances, combatants at the Abomination Rank will not take the field on the Blood War Battlefield. High-Tier Legends stand as the absolute ceiling for active combat power, so a High-Tier Legend is stationed to oversee each fortress. Yet, even they won't strike indiscriminately."

The White Dragon Lord thought of the Gold Dragon—Leopold Chodmartin.

"Then, Senior, the next rotation tasks me, Leopold, and the Black Robe Wizard's Association. How will the two fortresses be divided between us?"

"Going by past precedent, the Black Robe Wizard's Association will hold one fortress entirely on their own, while you and Leopold will co-garrison the other. After all, you two are freshly ascended High-Tier Legends; in terms of raw power, you definitely aren't ready to tangle with the veterans."

Grand Duke Silver Dragon offered a stern warning.

"If you encounter a foe you cannot match, activate your fortress's defensive Array immediately and call for backup from the Black Robe Wizard's Association and Alliance Headquarters. The Black Robe wizards might lean toward the evil side of things, but if they have the capacity to assist, they will still answer the call."

The White Dragon Lord nodded in understanding. The Council heavily incentivized mutual aid, doling out reward points to rescuers based on the battlefield's danger level and the actual impact of their intervention. Even if the Black Robe wizards cared nothing for camaraderie, they would still swoop in just for the points.

For the next stretch, Grand Duke Silver Dragon passed down the hard-earned lessons and survival tactics he had scraped together during his time on the Blood War Battlefield.

The White Dragon Lord hung on every word, practically ready to whip out a notepad to transcribe it all. These lessons, bought and paid for with the blood and tears of his predecessors, were highly likely to save his life.

Eventually, the topic drifted to devils. Grand Duke Silver Dragon abruptly fell silent, clearly sucked into an old memory. A flash of agony crossed his face before he issued a grim warning.

"Amos, you must maintain absolute vigilance when dealing with devils. They may not officially be our enemies, but more often than not, they are far more terrifying than the demons themselves. My dearest friend, the founding ruler of the Bolton Dynasty—Emperor Ivan—was driven to his death by their schemes."

The White Dragon Lord nodded. The devils' illustrious track record went far beyond mortal emperors; they had literally scammed deities into the grave. The number of abyssal lords who had fallen to their traps was already in the double digits.

On the Blood War Battlefield, the Divine Factions and the devils shared a tacit truce when it came to slaughtering demons. But as long as it didn't collapse the larger war effort, a devil wouldn't hesitate for a second to stab an ally in the back.

By the same token, if a mercenary out for profit saw a clean shot at a devil, they would take it without blinking. Demons were entirely incapable of production; their only value lay in the raw materials harvested from their corpses, much like Transcendent Beasts.

Devils were another breed entirely. Through countless trades with the outside world, they had hoarded all existing knowledge on alchemy, potion-brewing, forging, and beyond from across the planes—and put it to masterful use.

Even if a given devilish craft wasn't the absolute pinnacle of its field, it was still at the absolute forefront of the multiverse. As a direct result, devils were obscenely wealthy.

It even spawned a famous saying on the Blood War Battlefield: killing one devil pays out like ten demons.

The tradeoff was that a devil armed to the teeth was infinitely deadlier than a demon of the exact same Tier.

"These devils are not only devastatingly strong, they are preternaturally cunning. When they speak, you cannot dismiss them entirely, nor can you trust a word they say. Sifting the golden truths from their smokescreens... that is a judgment call you will have to make yourself."

Grand Duke Silver Dragon spun many more tales from the battlefront, leaving the White Dragon Lord feeling that this trip had been profoundly rewarding.

Before they knew it, the night had slipped away.

It wasn't until the morning sun pierced the windows, projecting a vivid splash of light onto the wall, that the three dragons realized dawn had broken.

Seizing the natural stopping point, the White Dragon Lord offered his farewells. He still had a mountain of tasks demanding his attention.