Chapter 1 The Mad King Appears?!

"The Mad King appeared in the Shattered Plains?!" Hao Ren was shocked, never expecting to hear such a message. "If you're joking now, you're playing with fire—I'll ask you again, are you sure it's Izhaks who appeared in the Shattered Plains?"

The demon guard shuddered at the name "Izhaks." Only the Mad King of old could make a demon look like that. Obviously, the other party wouldn't dare to make things up on this topic: "I saw him with my own eyes...he walked out of the flames, with those obsidian giants and black dwarves by his side..."

"Obsidian giants and black dwarves were both troop types from the First Legion back then," Lanina looked back at Hao Ren. "It's probably true."

Hao Ren had Lanina ask a few more questions, but these two demons were obviously just ordinary soldiers. Other than the Mad King appearing on the Obsidian Plains, they knew nothing else, including the movements of Banu Klark's legion and whether Seraton had already arrived at the Shattered Plains.

After the two demon guards had confessed everything, Izhaks directly pressed his hand on top of their heads, and the two demons silently turned into a pile of slag.

Lily saw this scene and stuck out her tongue: "Big guy is so brutal..."

"I feel like you're more motivated to kill demons than to deal with humans," Hao Ren looked at Izhaks strangely.

Izhaks rarely snorted coldly: "Hmph, that's nonsense—I look down on these bastards more than the races of the mortal realm. The races of the mortal realm and demons are inherently opposed, so it's normal for us to bash each other's brains out. Besides, the races of the mortal realm were at least defending their homes and countries in that great war back then. I have no complaints even if I lost to them. Only Banu Klark and Seraton are scum...they stabbed me in the back."

Izhaks was indeed defeated by the Allied Forces of the Holy See back then, but the real fatal blow came from those demon "compatriots." His battles with the races of the mortal realm had always been fair and square. One side was for ideals, and the other was for their homes and countries. With Izhaks' upright nature, he wouldn't complain even if he lost in such a war. In fact, he even admired guys like the Seven Heroes—leading a group of desperate warriors with weak mortal bodies to fight against the demon army, and even counterattacking from the mortal realm all the way to the demon plane. Izhaks himself admitted that they were a group of fierce people.

But compared to the Allied Forces of the Seven Heroes, those demon "compatriots" were not so ethical: Banu Klark had once bowed to Izhaks, but before the final battle, he secretly attacked the last reinforcements of the demon army from behind. Seraton gave Izhaks himself a fatal blow and now occupies half of the Seventh Plane.

Even someone with a better temper couldn't tolerate this!

Hao Ren understood Izhaks' true target of hatred, so he cleverly changed the subject: "Alright, let's not talk about them—what do you think about another you appearing in the Shattered Plains?"

"Anyway, I definitely don't have any long-lost brothers," Izhaks smiled. "This time, I have to see who 'revived' me."

A small team of demon stragglers was successfully eliminated by the ragtag army. The mercenaries and the Knights Templar were all going smoothly, except for a small number of wounded who had to return. The ragtag army reorganized its troops again and quickly rushed towards the Shattered Plains.

The rest of the journey was smooth, and they didn't encounter any more wandering demons.

The Shattered Plains gradually appeared in everyone's view. Hao Ren saw a peculiar landform from afar and immediately understood what the Shattered Plains meant:

The distant earth was cracked everywhere, with trenches and ravines crisscrossing the ground. In the air dozens to hundreds of meters above the ground, large and small pieces of shattered rock floated. These shattered rocks seemed to be free from the constraints of gravity, floating as if the entire plain had been shattered by a single blow, and countless soil and rocks had flown into the air.

"Those are 'barren stones,' a kind of magnetic material. There's a vortex magnetic field under the Shattered Plains, which causes half of the stones on the plains to float in the air," Izhaks explained in a low voice. "The origin of these stones is a mystery. I sent people to investigate it back then. The geological age of the entire Shattered Plains is inconsistent with other regions of the Second Plane. This area seems to have fallen from space, so the little old man guessed that the space-time bubble zone must not have been what it is now a long time ago. Maybe space was continuous at that time, which led to many planes having inexplicable things like 'meteorite craters.'"

At this time, the officer at the front of the team suddenly reined in his horse and shouted: "Be on guard!"

Hao Ren looked up and found that not far ahead was where the Allied Knights Templar and the Demon Legion had encountered each other.

The encounter took place on an open ground with no cover. A vast area was as pitted as if it had been bombed. Potholes and ground cracks caused by magic explosions could be seen everywhere. Countless soldiers wearing Allied armor and demons belonging to Banu Klark's legion were lying dead on the ground. Broken armor and weapons were scattered all over the ground, and the Allied flags were lying in tatters in the dust. The blood of the dead had been dried up by the scorching air, and only a strange turbid gas permeated the air: it was the smell of human blood mixed with demon evil blood.

The knight commander began to issue orders in an orderly manner: "Team Three, guard the surroundings. Team Four, search the rocky mountain to the east and be careful. The others check the battlefield and collect the remains... Also take away some of the demons' weapons. This damn place lacks everything, so don't leave anything that can be used behind!"

Hao Ren and the others pretended to be busy with other mercenaries, but they were checking the corpses of the demons and humans lying on the ground—checking their causes of death.

Because Lanina could tell at a glance that there were inconsistencies on the battlefield: although most of the dead demons and soldiers looked like they had died in fierce battles with each other, some of the dead on the edge of the battlefield were obviously killed in great terror. They fell towards the outside of the battlefield, all with serious injuries on their backs. Obviously, they subconsciously wanted to escape from this place before they died. The faces of those fallen human soldiers were still frozen with strong horror, while the expressions on the faces of those demons were more difficult to speculate—because the demons' faces were harder and you couldn't see their expressions...

However, Lanina did some research and said that those demons were also killed while fleeing in terror.

Whether they were human or demon soldiers, everyone at the scene was fleeing this place. Obviously, at the last moment of the fierce battle, a third force suddenly appeared on the battlefield, causing everyone to be shocked—this third force was self-evident.

Lanina lifted the broken armor plate on the back of a human corpse, revealing a fatal wound with scorch marks underneath. This wound completely penetrated the unlucky soldier: "It's a black iron arrow with a rocket booster from a black dwarf."

Izhaks found some broken stone slag on a demon not far away who had been almost smashed into a meat pie: "Debris from an obsidian golem soldier."

"It's indeed the First Legion of the Demon King's Army," Lanina's voice was very serious. "These weapons are unique to us."

"It seems that there is indeed a group of surviving Demon King's Army," Hao Ren stood up and looked at the empty Shattered Plains. "And they have a new Demon King leading them who looks exactly like Izhaks... But where did those guys run off to now?"

"They shouldn't be able to run far. There's nothing nearby that they can..."

Lanina had just answered halfway when a landslide-like roar suddenly came from not far away: rumble!

Hao Ren hurriedly looked up and saw that the team of knights who had been sent to inspect the rocky mountain had returned, throwing away their helmets and armor. The leading soldier shouted: "Demon King's Army! Demon King's Army! And a Demon King's City! Retreat! Retreat!"

This group of soldiers ran forward frantically, and behind them, accompanied by a burst of heavy footsteps, a dozen black giants that were six or seven meters tall came out from behind the rocky mountain. These giants were shaped like humans, with green runes shining on their bodies to reduce gravity and drive their movement. They shook the ground when they ran. Their heads were equipped with blood-red single eyes. The light of the single eyes swept across the enemies on the scene, and these behemoths immediately accelerated and rushed over!

Behind these giants, a group of dark-skinned dwarves wearing strange armor and a group of demons—Izhaks' army from back then—followed closely!

But these were just the beginning. That landslide-like roar continued to sound constantly. Accompanied by the violent trembling of the earth and the uninterrupted roar, Hao Ren saw a behemoth slowly rising behind the rocky mountain.

It was a city!