The Paladin in the Abyss

Meanwhile, at the battlefield where Elothysia had been rescued today, a portal composed of flames appeared out of nowhere, and a grayish-blue Quasimodo Demon crawled out of it.

The sight of bodies strewn all over the ground filled this small demon with fear. Many large ones had died, some of whom it recognized, and others it did not.

But it had no choice but to carry out its master's order. Circling the site from a distance several times, the Quasimodo Demon's eyes suddenly lit up because it had found something sufficient to report back.

It was a massive skeleton, with a thick, long tail for its lower body and a humanoid upper body with many arms, the corpse of the six-armed Serpent Demon, Ashap.

The Quasimodo Demon grabbed the skull of the Serpent Demon and promptly scurried back through the portal, returning to a place filled with flames and smoke.

"You're back so soon? What did you find?"

The inquirer was a Barlow Flame Demon, sitting on a throne formed from solidified magma, with a river of lava flowing from an active volcano behind it.

"They're all… all dead…" Fear suddenly surged in the heart of the Quasimodo Demon; its Flame Demon master probably would not like the news it brought back.

"What!!" The Flame Demon roared, jumping up from its throne, its hand wielding a Flame Whip, which it used to pull the Quasimodo Demon close and gripped it tightly.

"I brought back General Ashap's skull!" the Quasimodo Demon cried out, its body exuding a foul-smelling fluid due to terror, "You can use magic to find out who killed her!"

"Oh, that's not bad," the Flame Demon nodded, taking the skull of the Serpent Demon. The Quasimodo Demon's face showed a slightly relieved expression, but the Flame Demon suddenly flung it directly into the lava behind.

"You shouldn't have dirtied my hand," the Flame Demon let out a string of malicious laughter, dipping its hand into the lava as well. Then, using its sensory ability, it sent a summon to a much more important servant.

"Lord Yiltu, you summoned me?"

A ten-foot-tall, large demon flew in from a cave above the Flame Demon. This barely humanoid demon was extremely obese, with a wild boar-like head on its neck. Besides the two sharp tusks in its mouth, there were two pairs of tusks beside its chin and nose. Moreover, compared to its body, its wings were smaller than its claws, clearly only explicable by magic for its ability to fly.

This was a Soul Judge Demon, known more bluntly as a Pig Demon. By any standard, Soul Judge Demons were the ugliest members within the Tanali Demon Race, yet they considered themselves quite delicate and elegant, being the only kind of demon that upheld strict dining etiquette.

Of course, what often ended up on their dining tables were the limbs and flesh of humanoid beings.

However, the main duty of the Soul Judge Demons was not to destroy mortals through eating (or displaying eating).

As their name implied, the most crucial ability of the Soul Judge Demon was to immediately identify the most evil soul from a large group of Prime Demons, Coward Devils, or even Abyss worms—such as serial killers or mad tyrants in their past life—and elevate them to a fitting form, thus allowing the Demon Lords to quickly obtain potentially valuable subordinates.

"Ah, Duosifangao, I need your trick," Barlow Flame Demon threw the skull over, "Let's see who killed poor Ashap then."

Although its magic abilities were disparagingly referred to as "mere tricks," the Demon Lord took great offense but cleverly concealed it. With the Flame Demon's orders clear, Duosifangao immediately began preparing to cast the Spell.

The Quasimodo Demon's waist was adorned with a greasy and filthy pouch that held various spellcasting materials. From it, he extracted two eyeballs and stuffed them into the eye sockets of the Serpent Demon's skull.

"These were originally my afternoon tea snacks," the Demon Lord explained, "should you be curious."

"How dare you waste my time with such nonsense!" the Flame Demon screamed at him, "Hurry up and give me the answer I want!"

The pig-faced demon shrugged, silently despising the other's crudeness, yet his hands did not slow down. With some sinister gestures and his ominous chanting, the Serpent Demon's skull began to glow. Light shone through the eyeballs in the sockets and cast an image on the adjacent rock wall.

The scene was from the Serpent Demon's perspective, engaged in battle with a Human Knight. The Flame Demon watched for a while and muttered dissatisfied:

"So this is the Knight who killed Ashap? He doesn't look so impressive."

"It seems the Serpent Demon is injured," the Demon Lord hinted, doing well to mask his disdain.

"Is it?" the Flame Demon leaned in closer, "What happened to her arm? And why is she fighting alone, where did that stupid ox run off to?"

The Serpent Demon slightly turned its head just in time to see a spinning hammer knocking down an Enchantment Demon.

"Damn it! I will chop off this human's fingers one by one and use his own fingers to burst his eyeballs!" the Flame Demon cursed malevolently, all the while lashing the projected image on the rock wall with a Flame Whip, as if he could strike the Human Knight directly through it.

The rocks, formed by cooled lava, couldn't withstand such abuse and soon crumbled, preventing the two demons present from noticing the details of the Serpent Demon's final moments—only seeing the Serpent demon being stabbed in the back, directly piercing its vulnerable heart.

"Hurry up and tell me where this human, who should be killed ten thousand times and revived by magic ten thousand and one times, is now?"

Of course, there was no third person present to answer the Flame Demon's question. The pig-faced Demon immediately cast another Spell, and the light within the Serpent Demon's skull changed, but only projected a murky gray image that showed nothing.

"Stupid pig! Your trick has failed!" the enraged Flame Demon roared, and even the lava behind him seemed to sense his fury, bubbling up massively.

"No! My magic has not failed!" the Demon Lord shrieked, his voice like that of a fattened pig awaiting slaughter, "This just means he is currently in an area undetectable by prophecy magic, but I have other ways to find him!"
Your next chapter is on My Virtual Library Empire

"Then do it quickly!" the Flame Demon lashed out fiercely with his Flame Whip, striking the Demon Lord hard. Such an attack was far from enough to kill a High Rank Demon like the Demon Lord, and the flames did not deal much damage either, but the humiliation was not so easily ignored.

The Flame Demon knew, Flame Demons do not care.