{Chapter: 136: Interception}
A massive red vortex twisted violently in the distance, suspended in the sky like a bleeding wound in reality itself. It pulsed and crackled with chaotic energy, a swirling gate into another world—a battlefield soaked in blood and ambition. The sheer size of it was staggering, like a celestial storm frozen in place, rotating endlessly with ancient power and malignant hunger.
Dex narrowed his eyes as he observed it. From this distance, the portal resembled the eye of some sleeping god—or perhaps a watching one. Red light bathed the land beneath in an eerie glow, distorting shadows and casting long silhouettes of the monsters crawling around.
After standing silently for a moment, he let out a faint sigh.
Without a word, Dex stepped off the back of his makeshift mount—a dull-eyed, malformed [Little Demon] whose thick hide had served as transport for the past hour. With a swift kick to its spine, the creature gave a pained screech and scurried away, too unintelligent to be angry but clearly eager to escape.
Then Dex raised a single hand. Power surged.
A gust of wind exploded outward from his palm with unnatural force, swirling in an invisible spiral. Dust, broken bones, scraps of discarded weapons, and even a few unlucky vermin were blasted away from the path in front of him. The chaotic clearing was a small act of control in a realm built on savagery and madness.
He strolled forward through the path he had carved, his pace unhurried, his footsteps deliberate.
All around him, [Lesser Demons] and malformed creatures cowered and scuttled out of the way. His aura—thick with killing intent and warped magic—hung around him like a cloak woven from despair and blood. They could feel it, even if they couldn't understand it. The instinct to submit ran deeper than reason.
The stronger beings, however—tall demons with jagged horns, malformed giants with molten veins, and creatures cloaked in flame or shadow—watched him with expressionless eyes. Some narrowed their gaze, others showed their fangs. A few even let out low growls that trembled with restrained hostility. But none of them attacked.
Dex ignored them all.
In this part of the Abyss, hostility was meaningless.
Hatred was like air here—constantly present, breathed in and out by every demon. Every creature in the bottomless pit wanted to tear the other apart. Whether friend or enemy, kin or stranger, it didn't matter. They would all kill each other without hesitation if the circumstances allowed it. The Abyss was not a society. It was not a system.
It was a storm of violence barely held in check by strength and threat.
Dex smiled faintly. Power was the only language that mattered here.
He climbed a set of crude stone steps that looked like they'd been carved by claws rather than tools. At the top, situated on a high platform surrounded by piles of soul-crystal remains, broken weapons, and impaled bones, was a giant black table.
Behind it stood—or rather, coiled—a demon that immediately caught his attention.
She was massive, nearly three meters tall from the waist up, her muscular snake-like lower body curled elegantly beneath her. Her scales shimmered with a dark emerald sheen, and her upper half resembled a breathtakingly beautiful woman with an grrat face—beautiful in a terrifying way. Her six arms were all in different positions: two held a massive grimoire that pulsed with glowing infernal glyphs; two rested on the hilts of curved abyssal blades; and the last pair were folded neatly behind her back in what looked like practiced discipline.
Her armor was ceremonial yet functional—covered in glowing sigils and bound with enchanted spikes. The magical pressure rolling off her was suffocating. Dex immediately judged her to be an [Upper Demon], perhaps even close to the threshold of a high-ranked general.
Still, he walked up without hesitation.
With a half-smile, he casually handed her a token engraved with infernal runes and a sealed pouch filled with ten soul crystals, each pulsing softly—their trapped middle-rank souls swirling faintly inside.
The snake- demon woman looked at him without a word at first, her yellow eyes narrowing slightly as she sniffed the air.
She could tell.
The scent of his blood wasn't like the others.
It was pure—but not pure in a traditional sense. It was different. Like fire and ash twisted with something older, something warped by mutation and chaos. The lineage was hard to trace, and that alone made her wary.
He wasn't a standard Balor.
He was something stranger.
Her voice was sharp, yet calm. "Name."
"Dex."
"Race."
"Balor—mutated strain."
"Strength."
"Middle-rank."
She scrawled the answers down into her floating book, using a quill that materialized from a puff of black smoke. The questions were clearly just formalities. Everyone knew documentation in the Abyss meant little—it only existed to assign blame when something inevitably went wrong.
She gestured lazily with one of her hands toward a gathering area nearby—a pit surrounded by rocks and cracked banners of long-dead demonic legions. "Join the others there. Once we have enough for a stable teleportation wave, you'll all be cast into the Mi Ling World."
Dex followed her finger with a glance, then turned back to her briefly and smiled.
"Got it. You're the boss here, aren't you?" His tone was light, almost playful.
The Marilith six-armed demoness didn't respond. She was already turning her attention to the next demon in line. Still, Dex thought he saw the faintest smirk ghost across her lips.
As he walked away, his eyes lingered briefly on her long serpentine tail and disciplined posture.
She reminded him of someone.
The Naga.
A flicker of memory—golden scales, a sly laugh, the touch of a whip across his cheek, and eyes that promised death and desire in equal measure.
I wonder if she's still alive...
He didn't have time to dwell.
The place the snake demon had pointed him to was a large open crater filled with dozens—no, hundreds—of demons. But unlike the chaotic pits where [Lesser Demons] were crammed together like rotting meat, this staging ground was clearly reserved for those of true capability.
Each demon in the area had strength. At least [Middle-Rank]. Some were even far beyond that. Dex could feel them—a towering two-headed ogre like demon polishing a cleaver made of bone, a hunched shadowy demon meditating in silence, a group of horned women giggling as they played dice using tiny skulls as currency.
They all looked up when he entered. Some stared. Some sneered. One or two smiled with amusement or intrigue.
Dex didn't acknowledge them. He picked a spot near a boulder half-covered in runes and sat down, resting his elbows on his knees.
His gaze drifted back to the red vortex above.
He was going to the Mi Ling World soon.
Another battlefield.
Another playground.
He wondered if the people there had anything worth killing for.
Or dying for.
He looked around and noticed some other demons, abominations, and abyssal war beasts simply stood or crouched where they were, silent and motionless as obsidian statues, some blinking lazily with glowing, malevolent eyes.
It wasn't due to any sense of respect or camaraderie, nor a shared appreciation for peace and quiet. Quite the opposite. Every creature present in that gathering held a festering, innate desire for violence. Each of them was a walking storm of rage, hatred, and chaos compressed into flesh and spirit. But they were leashed — temporarily — by the word of the six-armed snake demon.
*****
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