Along with Flideng's voice came rings of ice that exploded around Chen Xu, freezing the nearby demons into statues.
In truth, with Chen Xu's eternal-tier mental strength and physical body, the demons on this battlefield were incapable of harming him.
Most of the demons here were fallen demons, the lowest tier of Hell, accompanied by tens of thousands of fallen demon mages. Any mythic-tier existence could have cleared them with ease.
Chen Xu had simply been startled by the stench emanating from the demons. The foul, bloody odor of their flesh had reached him even before their claws did.
Although the undead were not much to look at, most of them—with the exception of a few carnivorous types like ghouls or composite rot-beings like abominations—subsisted by absorbing the necrotic energy in the air.
In a sense, it was similar to breathing the essence of heaven and earth. Consequently, undead creatures generally lacked any offensive odor.
Demons were different. These creatures were proper carnivores. In a demon's dictionary, there were no concepts like cooking or gourmet food. They would eat anything from fresh, bloody chunks of meat to stinking, rotting corpses dripping with pus.
As a result, demons were always accompanied by an extreme stench. Only high-tier demons, who had used transcendent energy to cleanse their own aura, could avoid this.
"My Lord!"
Flideng arrived at Chen Xu's side, its internal ice power blooming to push away the frozen demons, creating a vacuum zone with a radius of nearly a hundred meters.
"Flideng, did Wol assign you and the ghost legion to deal with these small fries? Bullying fallen demons who aren't even legendary-tier?"
On the surrounding battlefield, swarms of ghosts clad in Nether Armor were acting with uncharacteristic ferocity, completely abandoning their usual style of ambushing from behind.
Relying on the high defensive stats of their Nether Armor and the bottom-tier racial strength of the fallen demons, the ghosts chose to engage in direct combat. Some even fought multiple enemies at once, charging through the demon ranks again and again.
Worst of all, since there weren't enough fallen demons to satisfy the ghosts, they deliberately left the fallen demon mages—who possessed resurrection spells—alive. They let the mages continuously revive the fallen demons.
Only after the fallen demons had been shredded into tiny, unrevivable bits of meat did the ghosts turn their claws toward the mages, dragging away those whose mana had been depleted.
This low-level brawl, which looked like university students from the Land of the Undead beating up Hell's kindergarten, did not satisfy Chen Xu.
The reason he had Flideng join this Outerworld Battlefield was to get a sense of the demon army's true nature.
In the legacy of the Lord of the Undead, records regarding Hell were mostly limited to major events, such as the various Dao Lords hunting demons ages ago, or the birth of the Seven Demon Kings of Hell.
In short, previous Lords of the Undead never expected the Land of the Undead to clash with Hell. Their information on demon races, battle styles, tactics, and coordination was virtually non-existent.
Even when multiple Dao Lords—all of whom were unique-tier—had invaded Hell together, they failed to slay the Mother of Hell. Now that so many years had passed, the Mother of Hell had likely recovered and might even be stronger than before.
If a quick victory was impossible, he would have to first annihilate the demon army—her tentacles—to prevent her from devouring more worlds, then slowly plan his next move.
Seeing Flideng leading a large group of ghosts to bully weaklings here was something Chen Xu could not accept.
Facing Chen Xu's questioning, Flideng was incredibly nervous, but it had its own grievances.
"My Lord, the large-scale battlefields are all occupied by Heaven's allied forces. Angels, monks, paladins, and Holy Light Pegasi are throwing around Holy Light spells and divine techniques as if they cost nothing. We undead take more damage from them than the demons do."
"We don't even have to wait for the demons to attack; we're scorched half-dead by the Holy Light first. Even the life-saving effects of our Nether Armor are burned away."
"After our first attempt at cooperation failed, that battle angel, Wol, found me a remote battlefield and sent us here to clear out these fallen demon camps."
After listening to Flideng's helpless complaint, Chen Xu understood a bit better.
It was true that the Holy Light of Heaven was notorious for its massive range; most of its spells and divine techniques were large-scale AOE.
While Holy Light was a massive benefit to the followers of the Lord of Heaven or native species of Heaven—who would receive all-around buffs instead of discomfort—it was a different story for others.
Angel Priests had a signature divine technique called Radiant Sun. It created a sun made of Holy Light energy in the empty cosmic sea, capable of radiating across a vast area. It was this very technique that allowed Heaven to campaign in worlds corrupted by Hell.
In that case, they would just have to fight on separate battlefields from the Heaven's expeditionary force.
"Contact Wol. Tell him to find a battlefield with high-tier demons for us undead to take over. Stop sharing these trashy fallen demon battlefields with us; it's a waste of time."
"As you command, My Lord."
Flideng reached into its body and pulled out a bundle of tattered cloth. After carefully shaking it out, the object inside was revealed.
It was a circular gemstone emitting a faint aura of Holy Light, with complex runes engraved inside. This was evidently Heaven's communication tool.
Flideng manipulated the gemstone and sent Chen Xu's request to Wol.
Not long after, a pillar of Holy Light descended from the sky, scorching a large black ring into the ground.
Wol stepped out and bowed to Chen Xu.
Upon hearing that the necrotic archduke had a new request, Wol did not dare to delay and immediately used a Holy Light Teleport to reach the battlefield.
This was a necrotic archduke from the Land of the Undead. As a realm on the same status as Heaven, Wol knew the importance of this relationship. This wasn't just a common ally; it was a serious diplomatic matter.
"Your Excellency, there are currently three locations in this Astral Battlefield with a large number of high-tier demons. Due to Heaven's troop limitations, our forces are currently in a defensive stance in these areas. We can withdraw quickly and hand them over to you."
Wol first produced a Starry Sky Signpost Scroll and handed it to Chen Xu.
Then, he released Holy Light energy to manifest three realistic scenes above them.
"The one on the far left contains blood demons, succubi, and voodoo banshees. The middle one has greater demons, hell worms, and fallen behemoths."
"The last one is an army of fallen ones from Hell. There are many legendary-tier and above fallen ones among them. Having endured the corruption of Hell, their strength is even more formidable than before."
When mentioning the fallen ones, Wol's tone shifted slightly. It seemed the blow dealt to Heaven by the fallen angels was still too great, making the entire group of fallen ones a thorn in Heaven's side.
Chen Xu looked up at the three battlefields. He ruled out the fallen ones first. As for the remaining two, he thought for a moment and decided he wanted them both.
Kunpeng had just been enhanced and needed a battlefield to test its strength. He would assign it to the field with greater demons, hell worms, and fallen behemoths, and send Sindragosa along to put pressure on it.
As for the other one, succubi and voodoo banshees were both demons proficient in spellcasting. Chen Xu planned to test the coordination between gargoyles and skeleton archers there.
"Lord Wol, leave the other two battlefields to me, excluding the one with the fallen ones."
"As you command, Your Excellency."
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