The Paladin in the Abyss-Chapter 613 - 637: Obey, or Destroy

“First, let me make it clear, my lord does not intend to beg anyone. An army surpassing thirty thousand, composed of nine legions, has already assembled outside the Silver Palace. Leading them will be General Taran of the ‘Hammer of Burning,’ General Babos the ‘Bartez Butcher,’ and General Tu’a of the ‘Pale Blazing Flames.’ If your heads have not been buried in the ground for the past thousand years, you should have heard of these three Flame Demon Generals,” said the Chief Ambassador in a leisurely tone, “Today’s discussion is about giving you representatives a chance to come up with a plan my lord can accept, to convince him there is no need to simply erase your forces from the map.”

“You’re quite polite, aren’t you, Lord Veyne,” Samantha’s voice oozed sarcasm. “But as I see it, there seems to be no choice at all. Submit, or be destroyed—is that it?”

“You could say that.” The humanoid demon whose skin kept secreting slime shrugged his shoulders, “And I would actually prefer if you chose the latter, as it would be much simpler and we wouldn’t have to constantly guard against possible betrayal.”

“Damn it!” From somewhere, the Minotaur found the courage to slam his hand heavily on the stone table in front of him, “Veyne, do not push us too far! Our lord is not a vegetarian, if you wish to fight, then come on! I guarantee you’ll be bashing your heads in at the Broken Horn Hall!”

“Chief Envoy, your words are truly disappointing. Are the fates of Twin Bridges Town also limited to these two choices?” Tijana asked with a feigned smile, “And here I thought our long-standing cooperation deserved some goodwill. Please don’t tell me that was just my wishful thinking.”

“Respected Pearl of the Stygian River, you have already proven that Twin Bridges Town is a reliable partner, but the situation is different now.” Veyne’s face was expressionless, “This is war, after all. In the end, you either join the victors, or you and the losers are crushed into fragments. There are no other possibilities.”

“Really? We have a splendid moat, and shortly I’ll give you a tour. Of course, even if I fill the city walls behind it with armies, just like what happened yesterday, it surely wouldn’t stop the siege of nine legions, but at what cost?”

…

Lancelot maintained his silence, pretending to be just a decorative suit of armor, yet he was carefully observing the expressions on everyone’s faces.

The easiest to read was the Minotaur Pami. After its impassioned speech, it realized the enormity of its mistake. Judging by its current expression, the moment Veyne shows even a slight willingness to compromise, this foolish beast would agree without hesitation. Across from it, the spider woman Kavalan was keeping her cool. Lancelot could not ascertain any information from her face, but her restless spider legs betrayed her extreme anxiety. The Succubus Samantha initially seemed very angry, but as the argument intensified, a flash of satisfaction crossed her face, and it seemed that stirring up the meeting was her true intent all along.

And the soul-judging demon, with its pig-face, was doing the same as Lancelot. Hediimer squinted its small eyes, scanning each person seated at the table. Unlike Lancelot, it made no effort to conceal its actions. Seeing that the meeting could end at any moment without any result, it raised its furry arm and gently tapped on the table. The force was slight, yet it made everyone subconsciously shut their mouths.

“Come now, lords, although we all possess eternal lives, it’s truly shameful to waste it on meaningless quarrels.”

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The soul-judging demon continued to tap out a rhythmic thump-thump on the table. Lancelot noticed that this demon’s hands, although with longer nails, were not much different from a human’s. However, such hands on a clearly bestial body made it all the more unsettling.

“I feel the need to clarify something, it was not Lord Wu’an who sought us out; we took the initiative to contact Lord Wu’an, which is why this meeting is taking place. The situation in the blood war has reached a very dangerous stage, our Tanari clan is on the brink of life and death, and we can no longer afford to fight independently as before.”

As the soul-judging demon tapped, illusive images began to appear on the surface of the stone round table. Lancelot looked up and saw what appeared to be a map of the Plains of the Abyss, similar to one Kalalin had once shown him: a serpentine river flowed from the upper half of the map, splitting off to the right in the middle, one branch continued west, the other turned south, and eventually fell into a massive rift that occupied a quarter of the map’s center. The rest of the map showed a desert on the left, a huge mountain range on the right, a land of lava in the lower right corner, and broken lands with many floating islands south of the great rift.

Lancelot knew that rift was the entrance to the Great Abyss in the Plains of the Abyss, with Twin Bridges Town located in the upper right corner of the map. Naturally, the map was not a full view of the Plains of the Abyss, but Scholar had told him that all significant locations in the first layer of the Abyss were near the Stygian River and the entrance to the Great Abyss, with the further areas being barren, even demons were loath to stay there.

Perhaps he was too obvious in his observation of the map, for Lancelot suddenly felt a pair of ghastly white eyes fixed on him. Shortly after, he felt someone trying to pry into his spiritual world, akin to sensing someone standing outside your bedroom window at night while the wind attempts to lift the curtain.

Lancelot’s thoughts whirred and within only a breath’s span, he had set a stage in his Divine Sense, then he voluntarily pulled the curtain back in that corner. Of course, he was very careful, as though the curtain was indeed stirred by the wind.

Whoever was standing outside the window would see an extremely surreal scene: a human knight, leading countless demons, crushing a large army of purple-skinned demons to dust. Wherever he went, cheers calling out his name would erupt, while countless naked Succubi knelt at his feet, longing for him to grant them a sprinkle of his Essence.

However, these trivial and vulgar things meant nothing to him. There was only one person he wanted, in that red castle, on a large bed draped with red curtains, the Pearl of the Stygian Riverbank waited for him. His slaughters, his conquests, his feats, all were for that moment to arrive when he would press down upon her with his…