Ashen Dragon

"Ignorant lowly creatures! In the face of the great power of The Abyss, all that you have is insignificant!"

The Black Water Lord spewed out a torrential black water, forming a stinking, filthy flood, raging across the land as if to swallow everything in Aphernas and turn it into its own sustenance.

"This is Aphernas—in every day, every minute, every second of the future, it will be my territory!"

Piere's Purgatory Longsword frenziedly expanded, turning into a great sword hundreds of meters long, deeply embedded into the ground.

"Boom!"

The earth continuously roared and trembled, and under Piere's command, the crust slowly cracked, and a deep crevice spanning over ten kilometers appeared on the vast wasteland.

"Boom!"

Columns of magma erupted from the crevice, soaring into the sky, mixing with the filthy black slime.

In an instant, crackling sounds arose, and waves of pitch-black smoke ascended; the black water boiled!

"Kill that infernal bastard!" The Black Water Lord's tentacles danced wildly in the sky.

Under its command, tens of thousands of rotten pioneers haphazardly flapped their wings, like a spreading darkness, surging toward the nearby Deep Prison Demon Refiner.

However, Piere would never act alone.

"Quick, let's aid Lord Baal! We must not let him fight alone for our sake!"

"Swear to defend Aphernas to the death!"

The Devils wouldn't miss this opportunity to seize battle honors; Devil Officers raised their steel forks, leading their long-preserved elite corps to "rescue," engaging fiercely with the rotten pioneers.

In the sky, demon corpses and fragments of armor and weapons constantly fell, along with foul-smelling slime showering down, pockmarking the ground with corrosion.

"Filthy beasts, I will make you witness the wrath of Aphernas!" Piere roared to the heavens, and Hell's evil energy surged toward his body, forming a blood-red vortex.

Surrounded by roaring hellfire, Piere's body rapidly expanded, flames solidifying into his blood, magma gathering into his flesh, steel transforming into his armor...

At this moment, the Devil was like an immense Magma Giant, its body presenting a stony brown shade, with magma flowing and encircled by flames and ashes, awe-inspiring at first glance.

The hundred-meter-high Deep Prison Demon Refiner appeared in the sky, its robust bat wings blotting out the sun; a mere gentle flap could unleash a sulfur storm from Hell.

At this moment, Piere invoked seventy percent of Avernus' Authority upon himself, in some sense becoming the embodiment of Aphernas.

—Though part of it had been greedily stolen by the Red Dragon.

"Praise Piere!"

"Long live Lord Baal!"

"Great Lord, mighty strength!"

The Batiz Demons shouted in unison, filled with flattering words among them, genuinely marveling at the strength.

"Boom—"

Piere pulled the Purgatory Greatsword from the ground, flapping his wings and carrying overwhelming momentum towards the Black Water Lord nearby: "Get off my land! Or die here!"

"Lowly creature! Even with the aid of Avernus' Will, you are no match!" The Black Water Lord roared, extending tentacles full of pitch-black slime.

Its massive body slowly unfurled, revealing a mouth nearly fifty meters in diameter, filled with hundreds of rings of sharp teeth, spraying foul black water that blanketed the sky towards Piere, with dagger-like teeth hidden within.

Yet, before the black water could hit, it was incinerated by the hellfire surrounding Piere, and those sharp teeth were repelled by the Evil Spirit Light.

The moss on the sewer's vaulted ceiling glowed eerily green under the dim lantern light, the murky sewage seeping over boots, each step creating a sticky "gulp" sound. Purple-black slime leaked from cracks in the walls, converging like veins towards the drain—this was the distinctive neuro-corrosive substance of the Spirit Sucking Monster Nest; ordinary people inhaling it would experience hallucinations as if countless tiny tendrils were wriggling in their ear canals. Suddenly, a misplaced "click" of bones came from behind a broken cast-iron pipe, as if something was twisting through a narrow space.

Three patrolling guards just raised their lanterns when the sewage suddenly exploded! Four Spirit Sucking Monsters burst from below, their pale humanoid bodies covered in detritus, the tendrils of their octopus-like heads trembling at high frequency, releasing visibly purple Mind Shock Waves. The first guard's helmet dented, his eyeballs bursting into a bloody mist under the increased intracranial pressure; the second man was pierced through the ear by tendrils before he could scream, his spinal cord drawn out of the body like a marionette; the only surviving guard staggered backward, his gunshot was devoured by the sub-frequency shriek collectively emitted by the Spirit Sucking Monsters.

Clearly, these Spirit Sucking Monsters were trained in tactics. Two feigned attacks, slapping the water with tendrils to create a mist barrier laced with corrosive liquid, obscuring vision; a third descended from the ceiling, using suckers to attach to the guard's skull, tendril tips precisely penetrating the occipital foramen—not immediately fatal, but controlling the captive like a puppet, forcing him to turn and load ammo into his comrades' firearms with his trembling hands. Meanwhile, the fourth Spirit Sucking Monster was slicing open the fallen guard's chest with bone blades on its finger joints, extracting the warm liver to shove into its mouth, with pale-yellow digestive juices dripping from beneath the jaw, smoking and eroding the ground.

The parasite hadn't completely killed the host. The guard's remains suddenly convulsed as they climbed up, and a semi-transparent Spirit Sucking Monster larva tendril emerged from the neck crack, pupils diluted to murky white. He grabbed a dagger to stab at his former teammates, squeezing out an inhuman synthetic voice: "Skull...dedicated to the main brain…". The real terror was just revealing—further down, a sewage pond began boiling, more pale figures rising from the water, dragging a dozen captives wrapped in mucus cocoons, their human faces contorted beneath the shells into silent screams.

After the last gunshot faded, the sewer returned to dead silence. Only the floating, tattered uniforms and still-pulsating neuro-corrosive fungus sheets testified to the massacre's existence. The Spirit Sucking Monsters dragged the captives down the drains, occasionally twitching cocoons as if the "seeds" inside were about to hatch. Within the mental network of the main brain, these new husks' coordinates morphed into a cold purple light, directing towards the massive shadow pulsating underneath Bod Gate.

The Upper City is relatively elevated, consisting of the Castle District, Temple District, Manoburn District, and Wide Alley District, with numerous religious buildings. The Miracle Hall and Supreme Miracle House are the Craft God Gund's church center in Bod Gate; Miracle Hall showcases Gund's great inventions, while Supreme Miracle House serves as a workshop. The Lower City mostly features stone houses with six districts: Sea Tower District, Blonrich District, Steep District, Crowded Side District, East Road District, and Branpton District. The middle class generally resides in Blonrich District, adjacent to the upper city aristocrats, while East Road District near the Stone Lizard Gate connecting the outer city is relatively more chaotic, with many lively bars and cheap inns. The Flame Fist Mercenary Group is stationed in Sea Tower District; the Flame Fist mercenary group's headquarters Bodlan Sea Tower is built on the largest rocky offshore island there, while Branpton District and Steep District are relatively dilapidated, serving as the living communities for sailors and laborers. The Outer City is along Chongsar River, gathering temporary structures and shanty poverty areas; its landmark monument is a stone bridge crossing Chongsar River—the Flying Dragon Crossroad, hosting numerous stalls and even expanded the bridge with wooden planks, adding many buildings atop it. Laws and Order here don't exist, even if the Flame Fist Mercenary Group's protection range is very limited; some people unable to settle in the city, or criminals gather here. Based on inhabitants' social statuses, Bod Gate is divided into the Nobles Upper City and Commoner Lower City, with the Outer City scattered around Chenyi Mountain, separated by Bod Gate between Upper City and Lower City; the entire city is named after it as a monument to its founder, Bodlan.