“Ye!”
Joan shouted, arm raised, mimicking the slang of the Demon Realm.
Below the hill, cheers, roars, and shouts immediately erupted in succession.
“Ye! New Demon King! Ye! Fight! Fight! Fight!”
“Summon the Demon King’s… forget it. By my command, all demons who are good at swimming, take one step forward.”
Every demon collectively took a step back.
Joan: “???”
The Terror Demon commander beside him quickly explained with a fawning expression, “Archduke, if you’re looking to soak in a bath, I’m afraid that won’t work! There aren’t any rivers or lakes in the First Demon Realm!”
A nearby Ghoul Demon also chimed in cheerfully, “What’s a lake? All I know is that I sink the moment I hit the water.”
It finally clicked for Joan.
Along the way, he really hadn’t seen any rivers.
He couldn’t help but be shocked, a hint of daze in his voice.
“That’s not right. Doesn’t the National Defense Army… bah, doesn’t our National Defense Army specialize in naval warfare? They move freely through the channels of the Thousand Rivers Territory and toy with the humans.”
“Because none of us are actually in the National Defense Army,” the Terror Demon commander said happily.
“Exactly. The main force of the National Defense Army is that group of brain-damaged Nagas from the Fourth Demon Realm,” the Ghoul Demon commander added, baring a mouthful of sharp teeth. “Archduke, don’t bother with them. They’re a bunch of lunatics who only swear fealty to Demon King Leah.”
Joan slapped his forehead, feeling a surge of regret.
‘Fine, I came to the wrong place.’
The ethnic landscape of the Demon Realm was so complex that he, a human, found it truly difficult to keep straight.
“Who do I have to beat up to make the Nagas listen?” he continued to ask the Terror Demon beside him.
“Ye! Beat Demon King Leah! Kick Demon King Leah’s perky little butt hard!” the Ghoul Demon commander interjected immediately.
“Guah! You idiot! Demon King Leah is already dead! You should beat the Fourth Demon God!” the Terror Demon countered mockingly.
The two demons argued for a long time without reaching a conclusion.
Joan had no choice but to send demons to find an Abyss Gate, deciding to visit the Fourth Demon Realm himself.
The Fourth Demon Realm…
This was a place few humans knew about and even fewer visited.
It was because the Fourth Demon Realm was a vast ocean shrouded in mist.
Once submerged in the misty sea, even a human with a steadfast will would find their sanity gradually eroded—to say nothing of demons, whose rationality was already thin.
Even if one could withstand the erosion of the mist and the deep sea, they might accidentally encounter the tentacles of a Demon God, resulting in the destruction of their ship and their death.
Furthermore, the Fourth Demon Realm had almost no land and few resources, so even human military scouts were unwilling to stay there for long.
Splash…
As soon as Joan stepped through the Abyss Gate, he fell straight into the sea as if an eerie force were dragging him into the depths of the abyss.
He quickly used Lightness magic to counteract his gravity and swam back to the surface.
Poking his head out, Joan looked around and saw nothing but an endless mist.
As far as the eye could see, there was only the grayish-blue surface of the sea.
Being born on land, a baseless sense of anxiety welled up in his heart.
He took a deep breath, entered an Overclock state, and soon found an inhabitant of the Fourth Demon Realm on the water’s surface.
It was a half-human, half-snake monster.
Grayish-green scales covered its massive body, which was three times larger than the normal National Defense Army members Joan had seen.
It was corded with muscles and exceptionally sturdy.
Its upper body was in the familiar National Defense Army form with four arms.
Its pectoral muscles were even “fuller” than the Saintess’s, and where hair should have been on its head, tentacles extended like braids.
But Joan couldn’t understand its lower body—it was a thick, massive snake tail with even thicker scales.
The actual National Defense Army members should have had normal legs.
Joan deactivated his Overclock and, without a word, punched the sea monster in the face.
He was learning the demons’ way of greeting very quickly.
After being hit, the sea monster didn’t get angry or retaliate.
It just stared quietly at Joan.
Within its unchanging, cold, vertical pupils was a sense of calm madness.
“The stars are beautiful. When did you return? All is well. I also hate the sunset. The sun… likes to lie.”
The sea monster spoke in heavily accented Imperial Common Language, uttering a string of words Joan found difficult to understand.
‘…A lunatic?’
Joan wondered.
The sea monster shook its head, pulled away from Joan, and flicked its tail to lead the way.
“Let us go. Home misses you. The weather is old. God will not forgive. Under the sea, there is no sun.”
Joan looked up at the sky obscured by the mist.
Well, there really was no sun.
But the question was—since there was no sun, why did this demon keep mentioning it?
“Does ‘sun’ refer to the thing in the sky?”
Joan asked, weighing his tone.
The massive sea monster suddenly turned around and pulled Joan into an embrace with its four arms.
“Sun… do not like. It will take you away.”
Joan tensed up, momentarily thinking his identity had been exposed, but the sea monster soon released him.
It led him into the depths of the sea and into a massive temple made of coral and shells.
As they swam through the corridor, Joan caught sight of dozens of shell reliefs hanging on the wall out of the corner of his eye.
The story in the carvings seemed to describe some sort of religious content, yet it felt inexplicably eerie to Joan.
The first seven images: A dazzling sun descended.
It was warm, beautiful, and wise, bringing many new and interesting things to the seabed.
The elders didn’t care, the adults were wary and concerned, and the children were excited and full of longing.
The next ten images: The children danced around the sun.
Sunlight pierced the mist, illuminating a path to the shore.
The sun bestowed a potion that allowed them to grow legs and leave the deep sea.
The children followed the sun away to the colorful world outside.
The final ten images: The elders gradually rotted away.
The adults waited for the children.
They waited for one year, another year, and another.
The coral rocking horses were wiped clean over and over, but the children never returned.
A sentence was carved on the wall in crooked characters: “As it turns out, the sun can also lie.”
The sea monster pushed open a stone door.
The glow from magic lamps pierced through the seawater, illuminating the space ahead.
First, Joan saw the elder Nagas sitting on massive thrones made of beast remains.
Their bodies were as large as warships, yet they appeared bloated and weak.
Not much light of reason could be seen in their cloudy, old eyes—only the idiocy of being immersed in a closed inner world.
Next were the adult Nagas.
They varied in size; the small ones were three or four times the size of a human, while the large ones were almost as big as small houses.
Perhaps due to the long-term influence of the seawater and mist, the adult Nagas had lost most of their interest in the outside world.
Joan’s arrival didn’t cause much of a stir among them.
The underage Nagas seemed less affected by the seawater.
They were curious about Joan’s arrival and longed for the “outside world” he represented.
They actively surrounded him, and their speech was relatively coherent—at least enough for Joan to understand.
“Did the King return in triumph?” a young Naga asked, blinking its vertical pupils.
“No… he failed.”
After saying this, Joan suddenly felt a bit complicated.
It was he who had personally killed Demon King Leah, yet he had never carefully considered the stories behind his enemies.
Enemies should just be enemies.
Soldiers shouldn’t be merciful.
That was the logic the military camp had taught him.
“Does the King need us again?”
The young Naga was eager, looking at Joan with envy.
“The sea is very empty. There is no daytime. I do not like it. I also want to go to the shore. The King said there are many beautiful, moving things on land.”
Joan wanted to agree, but in the next second, the adult Naga who had brought him there pulled the child back.
It glared at him, showing a rare display of resentment.
“The sea is warm. The sun is not warm. The mist is clothing. The shore is poison.”
The elder on the throne suddenly laughed foolishly.
It was unclear what he was dreaming about, but his giant mouth sucked in seawater to form a vortex, making a terrifying he-he sound.
An invisible suction pulled all the Nagas toward his mouth.
Two terrified young Nagas were swallowed by the giant maw in an instant.
Some adult Nagas were indifferent, while others opened their mouths silently, their faces contorted with agony.
The moment the giant mouth closed—bang!
The sound of a short, heavy punch rang out.
It actually shattered those anchor-like teeth, and the elder Naga’s jaw was dislocated with a crack.
Joan swam out of the giant mouth, carrying the two young Nagas.
All the Nagas looked toward the throne.
This was the first time they had shown such a unified emotion—terror, fear, and despair.
Joan also looked back.
The elder had awakened.
His old eyes were no longer cloudy; they flickered with boundless rage toward the one who had challenged his authority.
His bloated body slowly stood up, hardening with muscles like small mountains.
The elder opened his mouth, his expression full of anger and hostility.
An ugly tentacle covered in sinister patterns extended from the depths of his throat, replacing the elder’s ancient voice.
An evil power seemed to be parasitic on that tentacle, one that Joan had never encountered before.
It was powerful enough to give him a faint sense of threat.
Joan suddenly recognized what that tentacle was.
It was a tentacle of the Fourth Demon God reaching into the physical world!