The Record of Unusual Creatures
chapter-413

Chapter 413: The Ten-Year War

If possible, Hao Ren wouldn’t want to meet the allied army nor the demons in the demonic plane. He would rather stick to his ideal plan: get in to Osidian Plain discreetly, rescue Y’zaks’ daughter smoothly, then exfiltrate back to Earth; the whole operation wouldn’t be on the sly.

This was truly a if-you’re-not-with-me-you’re-against-me kind of world. If Y’zaks was exposed, the whole world would hunt them down. Hao Ren wasn’t prepared to experience the resurrection trick of Raven 12345 just yet; he was afraid to lose a limbs or two, or get additional ‘spare parts’ added to him if he were resurrected.

But plan would never catch up with changes. When putting action on the ground things wouldn’t be as smooth sailing: Curia coalition forces had encircled Osidian Plain and was having battles with several legions of army of Serathon. Under such circumstances, it was practically impossible to go in without getting spotted. So they had no choice but to infiltrate into enemy’s group.

But it was more comfortable to live with the allied army than the demons—at least aesthetically.

They went around the cordons of army of Serathon into Osidian Plain where buildings of human, elf, and dwarf could be found. Some of the demonic sentry posts had been modified into houses for human. This was the territory of the allied army. The land had almost been developed into a city with constructions were still ongoing.

Hao Ren began to recall what Lanina and Y’zaks had told him about the war back then.

Many years ago, the allied army had gathered the forces of the entire world and spent seven years before fianlly defeating Y’zaks, the mad demonic king who had sent people into the human world. With much sacrifice, they then forcibly opened the seventh teleporting gateway and fought a further three years of war in the purgatory of the demonic land and won. Ten years, countless of humans, elves, dwarfs, and orcs thronged the demonic world to fight the invincible demonic forces. Heroes rose and fell. Every race had their own heroes—Warriors of Light, Knights of Justice, the Saint Ladies, Knights of Lion Heart—but all of them had perished.

The last three years of the ten-year war was fought in the Demonic Plane. All races fought in the scorched earth where short-lived towns and entrepots appeared but were now abandoned. The ruins of human architecture could still be found along the way from the gateway to Osidian Plain—the ruins left behind by the ten-year war.

The final battleground of the war was in Osidian Plain.

Even Y’zaks couldn’t help but lament that it was the worst battle of his life. An incalculable army of the coalition surrounded Osidian Plain. They crushed the various lines of defense in the plain like a tsunami and eventually approached the last strongholds of Y’zaks—the demonic royal city in the centre of the plain and The Osidian Throne twenty kilometres away.

Y’zaks was stationed at the fortress called ‘The Osidian Throne’ at that time.

But in the end, the royal city and The Osidian Throne fell.

Knowing that it was impossible to break the line of defense of the demonic royal city, the most powerful magicians of the allied army began to construct a huge magic tower outside the city and cast an imprisonment spell, created an unprecedentedly massive dimensional crack, and sent the royal city and The Osidian Throne into the space storm.

What was left now was a one-hundred-twenty-kilometre long, thirty-kilometre wide crater where the allied army had set up their command centre.

No one would want to use such imprisonment spell in the human world because even the pope who formulated this plan couldn’t even be sure they could confidently control it, some were even worried that once thing got out of hand the entire space dimension might collapse—but since this was the demonic world, who cares?

Toward the end of the ten-year war, the warriors became almost fanatical, probably as a result of long-term stress from the war and the terror of the army of the demonic king, or it might also be that the negative energy in the dimension was consuming the mind of those veteran warriors. In short, those sacred warriors who were hailed as ‘the bravest and the most righteous’ were as paranoid as madmen; as long as the mad demonic king could be defeated, they didn’t mind to perish together with the entire demonic dimension.

The imprisonment spell was cast in the frenzy driven by vengeance. But luckily it hadn’t gone out of control and the war ended just like expected.

Now, it was just a year since the ten-year war had ended.

The allied army were the most massive military alliance in history. Though they were in the world of the demons, and Serathon was determined to become the second demonic king, the latter hadn’t been able to chase those suicide squads out of The Demonic Plane and could only hold the allied army in a standoff in Osidian Plain.

The allied army had controlled eight-tenth of Osidian Plain and several other places. Though they were short of getting total control of the entire remnant of the planet, they had built an unshakable foundation. Serathon had deployed his forces in the buffer zone between the gateway and Osidian Plain; for one, he wanted to repel the tired allied army and also to prevent them from launching a surprise attack in The Demonic Plane. So both sides were in a deadlock and Osidian Plain was never peaceful because of that.

Under the cover of mercenary, Hao Ren and others had an easy way in infiltrating the camp of the allied army. They were expecting rigorous checks, at least demanding for identity proof or something. But they went through various checkpoints without issue: the beardy guy acted as their guarantor and they were waived from being checked at most security checkpoints.

A few soldiers brought them to an open new barracks and pointed at a house. “You guys take a rest in there and don’t wander around. If there is an operation you will be informed. All the dos and don’ts are hung on the closet. New recuits keep coming in from the human world recently, we’ve no time to go throught that one by one with you. So help yourselves.”

Before they went, the leading soldier smiled wryly and said, “I hope you wouldn’t be like those spoilt brats who had just gone back a few days ago. The demonic world isn’t a place for holiday, the weather alone is already difficult enough.”

Hao Ren led the others into the barrack which was built of stones—stone was the most abundant construction material in here. The interior of the house was simple: wide beds, a few cabinets and that was it. The demonic world hadn’t much craft materials for human use. Ordinary soldiers could only stay in such places.

Though the environment was harsh, the stone house interior was cool. Everyone instantly felt refreshed once inside: they had had enough of the scorching heat outside.

“Why is the security lax?” Hao Ren found a low cabinet and sat on it. “Why there was no one asking for ID?”

Nangong Wuyue lay on the bed listlessly, sticking out her tongue and hissing. Without looking up, she said, “It’s not that they were lax, it was just that we looked too insignificant. To be frank, Serathon is the only threat to the allied army, none of us look like demonic spies. The only demonic king who had ever trained humans as his soldiers was ‘dead’. Now we’re thought to be on their side.”

Vivian split out a swarm of bats to fan herself and made the surrounding air chilled as she told about her analysis. “There’s another reason; as the war has ended a year ago, the coalition which is just an alliance of convenience to wage war against the mad demonic king has lost its purpose of existence, those who stay back are just merely treasure-hunters, I don’t see how united they are.”

“We will scout around the nearby area tonight. Vivian, send your bats out there and see if they could find some useful Intel, at least we should know what the coalition forces are up to.” While Hao Ren briefed everyone about what to do next, his sight inadvertently landed on Nangong Wuyue who was just beside him. “Wuyue, you…”

“I’m dehydrated.” The siren couldn’t even sit up. “I think I’m going to die…”

“OK, maybe you and Vivian should find way to make some shaved ice…”