GDK 513: One Man vs an Army
There were strange and unfamiliar creatures that stretched as far as the eye could see. These monstrosities bore fangs and flailing claws, as they threw themselves at him unrelentingly.
Demons of all shapes and forms inhabited the abyss, the largest being tens of metres tall and the small ones only the size of a palm. They came in all colours, each grotesque and terrifying, and a pungent liquid flowed from their mouths lined with rows of razor teeth.
Their breaths were equally putrid and on top of that, some of the demons oozes some sort of sticky pus from their bodies. It was the stuff of sci-fi movies, not real life. They were ugly, grotesque and disgusting. They evokes an instinctive hatred in him which made him itch to eradicate them all.
An enormous abyssal demon of over ten meters in height stood before Han Shuo. It looked like a gigantic cyst. It’s grotesque body oozed with pus and bulged as though tiny demon worms had been wriggling to get through to the open. It had a single green eye that gazed a rather sinister gaze.
Thousands of smaller beetle-sized demons emitted a corrosive fog as they swarmed Han Shuo. Their sharp, tiny teeth squeaked as they grinded against each other. The sight, and especially that screeching sound, chilled to the bone as hordes of them descended like locusts during harvest season.
The place was bizarre, grey and empty; it was alien. It was unlike anything Han Shuo had ever imagined. He stood in the pathway that led to the Profound Continent. At his sides, shooting stars zoomed past leaving behind streamers of dazzling yellow light. He looked around but could not quite confirm his location. Up ahead was a swarm of innumerable any seal demons, and he could sense that even more were behind them in the door-shaped passageway. Aside from that, there were only blurry grey scenes, and beams of powerful, brilliant light shooting past.
Squeak… screech… chatter…
The abyssal demons let out strange cries that Han Shuo could not understand. They swarmed Han Shuo the moment he appeared, and showered the grounds with poison almost immediately. Their vibrant toxins were like paint and the demons the painters, attempting to depict a cruel image of rot and abstraction on Han Shuo’s body.
Han Shuo had confidence in his body’s regenerative capabilities and his durability, but even so, he was unwilling to have a taste of the poison. It reeked of the strongest of acids and was able to cause paralysis.
It then struck him why the golden dragon and the titan were so quickly reduced to nothing more than ruined corpses pooling in blood. In the face of so many abyssal demons producing as much poison as they did, it would have been impossible to dodge given their mammoth sizes.
The colossal statures of the golden dragon and the titan were ultimately the impetus to their demise. They served as little more than a net for any attack coming their way.
Only the demigods were able to form barriers strong enough to defend their bodies. Both the golden dragon and the titan had extremely tough bodies, but even the toughest of bodies were bound to be corroded and torn apart when drenched in hundreds of jets off poison.
Even if Han Shuo had a body tougher than that he dared not take the risk of enduring the bursts of poison and activated a protective shield. A dark, hazy armor instantly wrapped Han Shuo.
Hundreds of jets of poison sprayed forth, all of which were deflected by a shield as thin as an insect’s wing. Faint traces of smoke rose off Han Shuo’s barrier, complementing his figure and forming a sharp contrast against the foul abyssal demons surrounding him.
“What powerful poison!” Han Shuo exclaimed.
With Han Shuo’s prowess in the demonic arts, and the support of powerful demonic yuan, once his protective barrier was cast it would be impenetrable. As long as Han Shuo had enough demonic yuan to sustain the shield, it would, in theory, never falter in defending him from all physical and magical attacks.
Of course, once the opponent’s attack power exceeded what the protective shield could take, it would still break apart. Only, it seemed that these poisons did not have that much power in them. In that case, a protective shield formed entirely out of demonic yuan and extraordinary secret technique was the perfect defence against them.
However, the smoke emitted showed just how powerful the poison really was having even affected the barrier. Han Shuo noted that when the poison coming into contact with his barrier, his demonic yuan drained at a significantly higher rate.
Squeak… screech… chatter…
The abyssal demons seemed rather intrigued. After a round of collectively spraying the toxins, they all stopped in unison, and began to communicate with each other in a way that Han Shuo could not comprehend.
They had quickly finished off the golden dragon and the titan, greedy and cruel as they geared up to break through the interplanar passageway ahead. However, they once again found themselves detested by a new challenger. From his tiny stature they had presumed they could easily brush off the threat, yet their unbeaten poison attack had actually been deflected, clearly a surprise to them.
The abyssal demons all stopped and entered a cacophonic round of discussions. Then, under the leadership of the huge cyst-like demon covered in pus standing opposite Han Shuo, they flew at him in a frenzy once more. This time, they not only continued to spew poison, but also made barbaric attempts to snap at Han Shuo’s protective shield with their rows of razor teeth.
If such crazed, savage beings were allowed to set foot on the Profound Continent, all its inhabitants would be devoured. Han Shuo looked at the abyssal demons swarming towards him and made a decision.
The skeletal staff suddenly appeared in Han Shuo’s hand, and he stared at the screeching demons lunging towards him with eyes ablaze. He quickly began chanting incantations. First, several rows of bone spears flew outwards, then the necromancers’ signature Boundary of Fear and Boundary of Weakness suddenly enveloped the entire space.
All physical worlds with living beings could not escape the fate of death, not even the cruel, vicious demons of the Abyss. As long as there was death in a physical world, there would be the element of death. As such, necromancy magic, which functioned on the element of death to launch attacks, continued to work at full power.
The skeletal staff was, without a doubt, unstoppable. By using the it to cast necromancy spells, an ordinary necromancy spell would double in power. It was only with the help of the skeletal staff that the Boundaries of Fear and Weakness were able to contain all the abyssal demons.
With the Boundaries of Fear and Weakness working as they should, all the abyssal demons suffered the effects. Their fierce attack speed at Han Shuo suddenly turned sluggish, and their minds became filled with fear of him, and their murderous eyes now showing some evidence of terror.
The bone spears made whooshing noises as they launched through the air, and many smaller, weaker abyssal demons were impaled. Green, red, beige, and brown blood sprayed from their bodies. Some of the larger demons were covered in bone spears, letting out wails that would send shivers down any listener’s spine.
Row after row of bone spears shot out like rain, intercepting hundreds upon thousands of abyssal demons. In that window of time Han Shuo once again chanted necromancy incantations, preparing to summon a vast army of undead to come to his aid.
And yet, as the incantation ended, there were no armies of undead creatures before Han Shuo. Not a single rotten limb.
Han Shuo was stunned. At first he thought that he had made a mistake with the incantation, and chanted it again, waving his skeletal staff with precise movements.
Yet it was the same. Not a single undead creature appeared!
Han Shuo could not help but feel a chill in his heart. His first reaction was to use the connection he always had with Little Skeleton to contact him. Strangely enough, he could not sense the Little Skeleton’s presence at all, and had no way of locating the netherworld.
Is it not possible to summon the undead in this space? Han Shuo eyed his surroundings carefully, and all he could see were streaks of light from shooting stars, and a dreary grey chasm.
Beneath his feet was not physical ground, but white fog. In Profound Continent, a blanket of water vapour could not possibly withstand any weight. Yet, Han Shuo was definitely standing upon it, and he could feel the solidity of the substance below him In front of him, dense swarms of abyssal demons had blocked his view. Behind him was an interplanar passageway connecting to the Profound Continent. Aside from that there was only the scene of greyness, as though he had been standing within the infinite space of the vast universe.
It appeared that this space was also affected by the space-time discontinuum, time and space both being completely out of whack, with no exact coordinates to navigate this region. That was why he could not use necromancy to communicate with the netherworld, and it naturally meant he could not summon creatures from the netherworld.
Observing his surroundings, Han Shuo quickly arrived at a conclusion.
Looking ahead once more, the tens of thousands of abyssal demons were rather sluggish under the effects of the Boundaries of Fear and Weakness. But after a while, they managed to adapt to it and resumed their movements, though much slower than before, and came charging determinedly towards Han Shuo.
“Hmph!” Han Shuo was unfazed. Even if he could not use any of his necromancy magic, he still had his actual life insurance – demonic arts.
Unlike necromancy, which required the presence of the element of death, with demonic arts, all of Han Shuo’s power was contained within his body. Regardless of which plane he was on, regardless of whether the element of death was present, the demonic power existing within his body would never be affected the slightest bit by environmental factors.
Han Shuo was rather satisfied with himself for his earlier decision. He had always firmly believed in making demonic arts his core and vital cultivation. Had he not done that, he would’ve been at a great disadvantage in this space where he was unable to summon large armies of the undead.
“Come at me, you putrid, filthy creatures of the Abyss!” He could be less bothered whether the demons could even understand him. Han Shuo smiled sinisterly as he slowly drew the Blood Seether from his space ring and, with a wave of his arm, floated out.
The moment the Blood Seether was out, a thick blood mist began to flow from within, along with a strange, sinister energy, slowly being released from the Blood Seether via the blood mist. Everywhere it passed, the bodies of the abyssal demons obscured by the blood mist would suddenly bulge and their already-slow paces geven slower.
Blood Seether was a demonic weapon made for massacre which Han Shuo had put a lot of effort in forging. As long as a creature had blood in its body, and was within the range of attack of the Blood Seether, it would be affected. These interplanar abyssal demons, despite the distinct colour of their blood, were still within the operational scope of the Blood Seether.
Everywhere the Blood Seether passed, the path and speed of blood flow of the abyssal demons would go through drastic changes. He could see their blood writhing like tapeworms on their bodies, and their already grotesque appearance seemed even more hideous.
The Blood Seether changed the speed and flow direction of blood in their bodies. Under the rapid clashing and swirling of their own blood, their bones would begin to crackle and fracture until the swirling blood reached an alarming velocity. Then, when the abyssal demons’ bodies reached their limits, their bodies would violently give way.
Once the first abyssal demon exploded, less and less could the rest withstand the power of the Blood Seether any longer. Their bodies would swell until they finally burst open, sending every shade of red spraying all over.
Gradually, all the abyssal demons enveloped by the blood mist blew apart and died in the force of the rapid swirling of their own blood. As Han Shuo gazed upon the spectacular results achieved with the Blood Seether, he wondered if he should refine more of such unique demonic weapon. Han Shuo had to admit that the destructive power of such a unique demonic weapon was highly satisfying.