Chapter 1174 Allies... for the Time Being

In truth, if he could, Hao Ren sincerely didn't want to deal with the Holy Allied Forces – nor did he want to deal with the demons of this world. Initially, his ideal plan was this: everyone would come to this world, sneak into the Obsidian Plain, find Izhaks' daughter smoothly, then hop on the ship, floor the accelerator, and return to Earth. The whole process, let alone alerting anyone, would ideally not even disturb the local flora and fauna...

After all, this was a world where they were truly "enemies of all," and if Izhaks' identity was revealed even slightly, it would trigger a world-wide manhunt. Hao Ren didn't plan to actually experience the resurrection methods of Raven 12345. That goddess wasn't always reliable. It would be one thing to be resurrected with a missing arm or leg, but she might even add extra parts…

But plans couldn't keep up with changes, and anyone who had actually acted knew it couldn't be that smooth: the Holy Allied Forces surrounded the Obsidian Plain layer upon layer, and outside them, Seraton's legions were battling it out with booming sounds. In this situation, it was unrealistic to sneak in and find someone without being noticed, so they had to repeatedly blend into the enemy's ranks – the enemy was everywhere, blending into any group meant blending into the enemy's ranks.

But at least staying in the Holy Allied Forces' camp was much more comfortable than being with demons, at least aesthetically.

The group bypassed Seraton's legion's警戒线 (jingjie xian, cordon line) without any major scares and entered the interior of the Obsidian Plain. More human, elf, and dwarf-style buildings began to appear. There were also some demon outposts that had been converted into human residences. This was the territory of the Holy Allied Forces, and it had almost developed into a city-state, and was still under construction.

Hao Ren was recalling the details of the war from Lanina and Izhaks' accounts.

Many years ago, the Holy Allied Forces gathered almost the entire world's strength and spent seven years defeating Izhaks' demon army sent to the human world. At a great cost, they forcibly opened the portal to the Seventh Plane, and then fought fiercely in this scorched human purgatory for three years before finally achieving victory. Ten years in total, people called this great war the "Ten-Year War" – at least that's what the Holy Allied Forces, who considered themselves the righteous camp, thought. For ten years, countless human, elf, dwarf, orc, and other soldiers poured into this demon world, engaging in fierce battles with the demon army, which was unreasonably strong. Countless heroes rose up one after another, and then fell one after another. Each race had its own heroes who would go down in history: Warriors of Light, Knights of Justice, Great Saints, Lionheart Knights. These heroic titles all rose to glory during those ten years, but less than one in ten were still alive.

The last three years of the Ten-Year War took place in the demon plane, where the races fought on this nearly uninhabitable scorched earth. During this period, countless ephemeral towns and distribution centers appeared, but almost all of them were now abandoned. Hao Ren and his group saw ruins of human-style buildings on their way from the portal to the Obsidian Plain, which were the remnants of the Ten-Year War.

The final battle took place on the Obsidian Plain.

Even Izhaks couldn't help but sigh when he recalled that battle, saying it was the most tragic battle he had ever experienced. Countless allied forces of all races surrounded the entire Obsidian Plain, grinding down the defenses on the plain wave after wave, like relentless tides, and finally approaching Izhaks' last two strongholds: the Demon King City in the center of the plain and the Obsidian Throne, less than twenty kilometers from the King City.

At that time, Izhaks was stationed in the fortress called the "Obsidian Throne."

But in the end, both the King City and the Obsidian Throne could not escape destruction.

After discovering that it was difficult to directly break through the defenses of the "Demon King City," the most powerful mages of the Holy Allied Forces built huge magic towers outside the city and jointly released an unprecedented Grand Forbidden Spell. They created the largest spatial rift in history, sending the entire King City and the Obsidian Throne into the spatial storm.

Now there was only a huge pit left, one hundred and twenty kilometers long and thirty kilometers wide at its widest point. The Holy Allied Forces set up their general headquarters around the rift.

No one would ever use such a forbidden spell in the human world, because even the Pope who formulated this plan wasn't sure how great the chance of it going out of control was. Some even worried that if the forbidden spell went out of control, it would cause the entire space to collapse – but this was the demon world, who cared about that?

During the late stages of the Ten-Year War, the warriors here fell into a near-fanatical state, perhaps due to the long war and the terrifying oppressive force of the demon army, or perhaps the negative forces of this space were eroding the minds of the veterans. In short, the holy warriors who were known as "the bravest and most righteous people of all races" in the late stages of the war were no different from paranoid lunatics. As long as they could destroy the Mad Demon King, they wouldn't hesitate to perish together with this entire demon space.

So the Grand Forbidden Spell was released under the impetus of revenge-fueled fanaticism. Fortunately, it didn't go out of control, and it completely ended the war as planned.

Now, less than a year had passed since the end of the Ten-Year War.

The Holy Allied Forces had organized the most massive military force in history. Even though they were now in the demon world, even if Seraton wanted to become the second "Demon King," the latter couldn't drive these desperate fellows out of the demon plane, and could only stalemate with the Holy Allied Forces near the Obsidian Plain.

Now the Holy Allied Forces occupied eighty percent of the entire Obsidian Plain and several other territories. Although they failed to control the entire territory of this broken planet, their foundation was strong and difficult to shake. Seraton, who had seized an advantage at the beginning, deployed his troops on a large "buffer zone" stretching from the portal to the middle of the Obsidian Plain. On the one hand, he was trying to repel the Holy Allied Forces, who had become exhausted. On the other hand, he was also guarding against these guys suddenly getting hot-blooded and rushing into his demon plane to loot and burn. Anyway, the two groups were deadlocked like this, and the several positions on the border of the Obsidian Plain were never quiet.

Hao Ren and the others easily blended into the Holy Allied Forces' garrison as foreign mercenaries. Originally, everyone thought that this would at least require strict scrutiny, and that someone would ask for some kind of identification, but they didn't expect that everything would be done quite easily in the end: the bearded man had received a life-saving grace, so he helped them provide a guarantee, which exempted them from most of the inspection steps.

Finally, several soldiers led the group to a spacious new barracks and pointed them to a house: "You guys can rest here for now, don't run around. Someone will come to inform you if there are any new missions. The things you need to know about living here are hanging on the cabinet in the house. Recently, new people have been teleporting over from the human world, and we don't have time to take them one by one. Figure out how to adapt yourself."

Then the leading soldier chuckled: "I hope you don't run back like those young masters did a few days ago – the demon world is not a good place to stay. Even the hellish weather is unbearable for most people."

Hao Ren led his companions into the barracks, which was also built with readily available stones: the most abundant building material here was stone. The furnishings inside the house were extremely simple: a large bunk bed, a few cabinets, and nothing else. It seemed that it was really impossible to find too many raw materials suitable for human craftsmanship in the demon world, and ordinary soldiers could probably only live in this kind of place.

Although the environment was a bit harsh, the inside of this stone house was really cool. After entering, everyone felt a bit like they had been reborn: they had really had enough of the hot air outside.

"The inspection is so lax now?" Hao Ren randomly found a low cabinet and sat on it. "Why didn't anyone ask for identification or anything? Lanina had been preparing for it all the way."

Nangong Wuyue listlessly sprawled on the large bunk bed, sticking out her tongue. Hearing this, she didn't even lift her head: "It's not that the inspection is lax, it's that we're too inconspicuous. And to be honest – the Holy Allied Forces' only enemy now is Seraton's demons. Look at us, does anyone look like a demon spy? The only demon boss in this world who would train humans as soldiers is already 'dead.' Now, as long as you have a human face, you're at least in the same camp as the Allied Forces."

Vivian conjured a large group of small bats to fan herself, while creating cold air around her, and helped analyze: "There's another reason. The war ended a year ago. The Allied Forces were originally organized to deal with the Mad Demon King. Now that their target has disappeared, and the remaining people are just gathered here to find a 'treasure,' I don't think there can be any unity in this kind of army."

"Tonight, we'll just stroll around nearby. Vivian, send out your bats and see if they can eavesdrop on any information, at least to find out what the Allied Forces are looking for," Hao Ren instructed the next course of action, his gaze falling involuntarily on Nangong Wuyue next to him. "Wuyue, you..."

"I'm already sticking out my tongue, okay?" The sea妖(yao, siren) girl was almost too weak to even get up. "I want to die..."

"Okay, you can cooperate with Vivian later to find a way to make some shaved ice..."