The Villain's Story

Chapter 946: The power of the demon.

‘Cough!’

Sabrina coughed, rubbing her eyes and alleviating the itch present in her throat with magic. However, the environment around her was toxic, too toxic. She had to expend a considerable amount of mana to get rid of the irritation. She stood up, dusting herself off.

Her landing had been… a disaster, to say the least. While Harrison had proved to be correct about his theory on the portal coordinates, the landing was… peculiar, to say the least. Sabrina had entered with grace, and was thrown downwards at a high speed, nearly breaking her skull from the impact.

The destabilization of the portal was most likely the cause. She sighed, thinking to herself.

‘Alan’s portals are nothing like this…’

They didn’t throw her at a high speed, nor did they mess with her magic, and induce a sense of nausea. Sabrina coughed once more, and looked around, examining the area she found herself in.

‘Am I underground?’

She thought to herself, perplexed. She tapped her staff on the ground, passing her mana in the form of tremors, gaining more insight about the place. She was indeed underground, located in what appeared to be an abandoned mine.

‘Shit…’

She cursed, as she cast multiple barriers around herself. The mine was toxic, incredibly toxic, hot, and full of smoke. The mana here was anything but tranquil, and was constantly interfering with her spell. She realized it was because she was using normal mana, devoid of any affinity.

Quickly switching to a spell of the [Darkness] affinity, she found the interference halted. Indeed, The Abyss was the best place for Darkness and Chaos, there was an abundance of those two types. The only other prominent mana source here belonged to fire, tainted by Chaos.

Finally free from the awful irritation, Sabrina navigated the mine, finding quite a few number of corpses strewn about. Skeletons bearing not an ounce of flesh. They were as black as the night, as extremely brittle, turning to ash with even the slightest touch. Sabrina frowned, but it quickly disappeared.

One cannot expect a nice environment in the Abyss, everywhere has it’s own fair share of disgusting things. She expanded her [Mana Sense] as far as she could, and noticed that the only way to go was up. Below her, were patches of lava, and… a void she was reluctant to explore.

There was not a single living being within the mine, which surprised her. Alpha had told her that you would always find one or two creatures no matter how abandoned a place was. Hellspawn that fed off the corrupt energies… but not a single one was here. It irked her.

She traversed the mine slightly, finding a somewhat spacious area, from there, she summoned Alpha and Beta, taking the duo out of her domain. Alpha grimaced as she stepped out, but quickly removed any signs of it. Beta didn’t mind it too much, despite being the one with heightened senses.

They both bowed down as soon as they saw her. Sabrina rolled her eyes, giving them a mental command to follow her.

“Yes, my Queen.”

Alpha answered, while Beta simply nodded. He was the shy type, something you would hardly believe if you saw his imposing figure. He was even bigger than Alan, but not stronger.

Beta took the lead, much to Sabrina’s dismay. Her magic had already told her nothing alive existed here, but Beta was simply unwilling to take such a risk. She sighed, not bothering to stop him.

She knew she wasn’t the expert here, Alpha and Beta had ‘lived’ in the Abyss before, courtesy of ‘Almada’. A frown appeared on her face when she thought of that name.

“…This is strange.”

Alpha said, noticing that Sabrina was right, no living creature existed here in this mine. This was somewhat impossible for the Abyss, considering that the critters here had adapted to the toxic environment enough to thrive in it. The fact that nothing was here was concerning.

Either there was truly nothing, or this was the territory of something they couldn’t even sense, a monster or demon beyond their wildest nightmare. For a moment, they were worried, but soon dismissed it.

Anything that could avoid their senses would be either Epic or above. Only two Epic beings existed in this Abyssal Layer, the Martial Star, the King of the Realm, and Behemoth, the Demonic Beast of Fire and Hate. Behemoth resided in a volcano, near the city of Pride, close to the Martial Star.

This was so the Martial Star could control the beast, making sure it didn’t go on a rampage and destroy any of his cities. Word has it that the King wanted to tame it, but had been unsuccessful even now.

Despite having beaten the living daylights out of the Beast multiple times, it refused to submit to him, something the Martial Star was fond of, apparently. The only two beings that could avoid their detection weren’t ones that preferred this… dilapidated setting.

Sabrina and the group navigated the odd mine, using Alpha’s mana sense to find a way up. They noticed the number of corpses increase, as well as the smoke. A magic circle appeared before Sabrina’s eye, notifying her about the cause of death.

‘Suffocation, Heatstroke, and even catching fire whilst alive…?’

“This must be one of the slave mines, although I don’t know why it was abandoned.”

The Abyss, while completely unsuitable for agriculture and any form of plant life, was extremely, extremely rich in rare minerals. It wasn’t a stretch to say that the entire universe depended on the Abyssal layers for their mineral resources. Especially since they could also regenerate.

It was the only resource this hell had… and the Demons and The Alliance both utilized it to keep each other at bay, or equal in terms of strength. The Alliance invaded Abyssal Layers for the metals, whilst the Demons invaded planets for food and water.

The Alliance kept many Abyssal Layers under their control to sustain their needs, and so did the Demons, keeping many planets to sustain their needs as well.

It was strange to see a mine be abandoned in the Abyss, which only increased Alpha’s worries…