Evolution: From Little Devil to Devil Empress

Chapter 448: Looming Aura

A few hours later, the battle sounds receded as the raid looked ready to reach its end.

The Earth Elementals finished off the last insectoids, nailing them on the ground using giant earth spikes.

Yet strangely, not even a single insect corpse stayed behind.

Throughout this war, every time an insectoid perished, it would transform into pure demonic energy and return to the surrounding world.

Only the half-shattered cores of the fallen Earth Elementals remained on the battlefield, though an invisible force collected some of them.

Unbeknownst to the Earth Elementals, some of whom had reached the peak of the True Devil stage, a pair of invisible beings was wandering through the battlefield.

A beautiful red-haired woman stood at the front, walking casually through the ruins of the mine and the cracked stones, while a rat-like creature followed half a step behind her.

”Do these beings attack the mine often?”, Liora put away the core of an Earth Elemental and questioned Scurry without turning back.

He did not dare to ignore her.

Though countless thoughts raced through his mind, he sensed the connection of the Devil Contract between them and nodded his head repeatedly.

”That’s right! That’s right!”

”Those damn beings are seemingly infinite in number. I don’t know what’s going on with them. An army of them will arrive at the mine each week.”

Saying this, a trace of fear flashed across Scurry’s pupils.

”These things are mindless! My Lord, you saw what happened, didn’t you? These insects will never take the initiative to retreat, even if only one of them still stands!”

”Only by killing them all and forcing them to transform into demonic energy can we stop their raid!”

”I suspect that this is the reason they can attack again and again.”, he added.

”I guess that they can most likely recover from the ’demonic energy’ state and be reborn continuously.”

The moment his words fell, Scurry’s eyes lit up. His whiskers swayed.

The earlier fear quickly dissipated, replaced by undisguised admiration.

”But now that Your Excellency is here, it’s only a matter of time before the truth is uncovered.”

”My Lord, besides the Earth Spirit Ore, the secret these beings hold is perhaps the most precious in the entire demi-plane!”, he said, and subconsciously glanced at Liora’s hand with pain in his eyes, trying to locate her space ring.

Clearly, her taking all the Earth Spirit Ore from the warehouse had given him a great blow.

Especially considering he was only half a step away from making it his own, Scurry was heartbroken.

Liora’s intuition was keen.

Although Scurry had made significant progress and had managed to become a Greater Devil, he was far behind her, both in strength and experience.

Thus, she immediately captured his wandering gaze and guessed his inner thoughts.

However, she didn’t say a word, not scolding him for overstepping his boundaries.

This was not because she was lost in the happiness of their reunion and chose to spare him, but because her mind was occupied by another, completely different matter.

”I didn’t expect that the Earth Elementals have secretly broken through the seal of the Starfall Mountains.”

”Though the strongest among them in this Hollow is only a Greater Devil, it’s unknown if those Archdevil Earth Elementals, slumbering in the depths of the forbidden area, have secretly escaped too.”

Liora felt that she had uncovered a great secret.

It was well-known that all the elementals residing in the four forbidden areas were unable to leave, guarded by a powerful formation which acted as a cage.

Even the Archdevil beings among them were the same, evidenced by the Archdevil Fire Elemental, which Liora had once provoked.

Despite being only a True Devil at that time, she had been able to survive exactly because of this.

Yet now, a large number of Earth Elementals had broken out of their cage.

Liora had previously suspected that these four forbidden areas were related to the Four Elementals Devil, and in turn, were connected to each other.

Since the Earth Elementals had succeeded in escaping their seal, was there anything stopping the other elementals from doing so, too?

”I’m afraid that the 173rd Demon Layer is about to be plunged into chaos again. I doubt that these elementals will be friendly to other Devils.”

”Most importantly, the likely culprit behind all these changes is...”

”Me.”, she realized, knowing full well that these changes started not long after the Catastrophe Devil’s birth. She didn’t believe that it was a mere coincidence.

Still, though she guessed this, Liora was not too worried.

Her current strength gave her the confidence to deal with most situations. Even if the 173rd Demon Layer was destroyed and the elementals were left to wreak havoc, she could always migrate to another Layer.

With her Archdevil strength, doing so was quite easy.

”Compared to this, what I’m more interested in at the moment is this Hollow...”

Her footsteps did not pause, and she continued collecting the cores of the fallen Earth Elementals.

Yet, her head tilted, and her gaze landed below, staring at the direction of the underground mine.

Liora could sense an unknown aura looming over there, an aura that was very well concealed.

Even Archdevils would have trouble sensing it.

The only reason Liora did was not because of her own strength or some kind of intuition warning, but because of the bizarre reaction of her Space Orb.

Coupled with the insectoids who had previously attacked the mine, Liora had a faint guess about their purpose.

Despite this, she didn’t rush to personally investigate it.

Her consciousness stirred faintly, and part of it dove into her Space Orb.

It didn’t land on any of the treasures in her possession, but at the formation located at the very edge of this cloud-covered demi-plane.

Or rather, at the person sealed inside.

--

During the course of Liora’s descent into the World of Knights, she had managed to capture the then Saint of the Holy Church, a True Knight named Diana.

She had been able to extract various pieces of information from her, intelligence that proved vital to her successful invasion of that world. It could be said that Diana played a big role in Liora being able to reach her current level of strength.

Yet, as Liora left the World of Knights and became increasingly powerful, this Saint had nothing valuable to provide her with.

Liora did not kill her but let her stay inside the Space Orb, giving her just enough nutrients to survive.

But surprisingly, as Liora’s strength improved and her achievements in formations became greater, her guard against Diana did not relax.

If anything, the Saint’s prison had only become far more powerful.

That was because...

”Roar!”, a piercing screech erupted within the Space Orb, causing the nearby clouds to tumble violently.

Metal chains clattered and struck everywhere, as if the murderous being they were containing was trying its best to break free.

As Liora’s consciousness landed onto this ”being”, its appearance became clear.