The two Great Solar Godfiends stood there in a daze. They watched helplessly as the green snake demoness retracted her black chain and domain. She then used the flowing water to vanish.
“The green snake demoness fled?” The two exchanged glances.
“Junior Sister, Junior Brother.”
The two stopped casting their forbidden Godfiend spells and hoisted up the two Godfiends’ corpses from the river with their Quintessential Essence. Junior Brother Yang and Junior Junior Sister Chen had fought with them for a short while, but now they were dead. This made the two Great Solar Godfiends extremely sad.
“What should we do now?” asked the armored man.
“Archean Mountain has given orders for Godfiend teams to stop reinforcing the cities once a Godfiend dies during a battle,” said Zhou Fu softly. “Without Junior Sister Chen and Junior Sister Yang, our team has lost half its strength. We can’t continue fighting the demon monarchs.”
Although they had only lost two Indestructible Godfiends, one was skilled with domains while the other was skilled with illusions. They provided great help to the entire team.
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning flashed across the horizon and reached the river.
The duo saw the black-robed youth standing on the water.
“Senior Brother Meng.” The duo stood by the riverbank and bowed respectfully.
“The demon monarch fled?” Meng Chuan’s expression changed when he saw the two dead Godfiends.
“It was a third Firmament snake demon monarch. I believe it has reached the Realm of Dao. It is very adept at controlling its water domain. The demon monarch is even stronger when around a large water source.” Zhou Fu immediately revealed everything he knew about the demon monarch. “The demon monarch fled via the river roughly 30 seconds before you arrived, Senior Brother Meng.”
“Thirty seconds?” Meng Chuan shook his head slightly. Even an average Great Solar Godfiend could flee dozens of kilometers in 30 seconds, much less the snake demoness—who was clearly quite formidable. They didn’t even know which direction she had fled in.
“If we had held her back for another 30 seconds, Senior Brother Meng would have killed her.” The armored man was somewhat indignant.
“We can’t stop her if she wants to escape.” Zhou Fu shook his head.
Meng Chuan frowned. Thirty seconds ago? That was when I killed the fox demon monarch. The snake demoness must’ve fled immediately once she learned of Demon Monarch White Fox’s death through the token.
“Bring these two juniors back,” said Meng Chuan with a sigh. “Leave the other places to me.”
With that said, he disappeared into the horizon.
“With Senior Brother Meng around, Gu Mountain Prefecture’s various cities will soon be safe,” said Zhou Fu. “We don’t have to worry.”
“Yes.”
The two Godfiends brought their companions’ corpses to the nearest county city and waited for Earth Net to make arrangements.
...
Meng Chuan searched through all the areas that needed help thoroughly. He even checked the cities that hadn’t requested for help. Whenever he spotted smoke, he would immediately head over and check on the situation.
Whoosh.
An hour later, Meng Chuan returned to his small compound in Gu Mountain Prefecture City.
“Ah Chuan.” Liu Qiyue had remained because she was in charge of guarding the prefecture city while he was outside the city.
“Was the prefecture city attacked?” Meng Chuan asked.
“No.” Liu Qiyue immediately asked, “How are the other places?”
After a moment of silence, Meng Chuan said, “The county cities were all attacked. Many village forts suffered attacks as well.”
“All the county cities were attacked?” Liu Qiyue was alarmed.
“Yes.” Meng Chuan nodded. “I also discovered two Godfiend teams in Gu Mountain Prefecture. One Godfiend team was in perfect shape, while the other Godfiend team lost two Indestructible Godfiends.”
“Two Godfiends died in battle?” Liu Qiyue felt terrible. However, this was a war. One had to shed blood if they wanted victory.
...
In fact, many places in the human world had been attacked by demons during this period of time. Flames of war erupted everywhere, and everyone was in a panic.
People in the village forts had never expected the village forts to become dangerous as well. In the past, demons occasionally attacked them, but it didn’t happen very often. Also, those attacks never really did too much damage to the village forts. However, they never expected demon monarchs to attack them. The lucky village forts lost 20 to 30 percent of their population before a Godfiend arrived. The unlucky ones were completely wiped out!
It was truly tragic.
In comparison, the cities were much safer. This was because Godfiends would rescue cities first! Since the cities were large, the number of casualties was relatively low. The larger the city, the safer it would be.
For example, the imperial capital, Archean City, Luo Tang City, Calm Sea City, and the state capitals were not attacked because powerful Godfiends guarded them! Therefore, families—that were somewhat capable—wanted to move to these bigger cities.
Some Godfiend family clans would arrange for a portion of their clansmen to move to large cities like the state capitals. This was also to ensure that the clan could survive. The weaker clans wanted to move to prefecture cities. Those slightly capable hoped to move to a county city.
This caused all the village forts’ population to decrease gradually. As the demons attacked repeatedly, the number of people in the village forts gradually decreased as they migrated to various cities. This raised the prices of houses in the cities greatly. Life in the city would become harder as more people migrated to cities on a large scale. The price of food rose since it was short in demand, and farms and plantations needed more manpower.
Some people even left the cities and began farming on a large scale. They lived out in the fields, lowering the chances of a demon monarch attacking them.
Farming would become a high-income industry in the future, but it was also one of the riskiest industries. The death rate was naturally high if one stayed outside the city for long periods of time.
However, as long as the income was high enough, some people would ultimately be willing to risk their lives to earn money.
...
Inside a dark, luxurious underground palace, a single-horned man sat on a throne as he looked down at a black fox demon monarch. Other demon monarchs stood beside the black fox demon monarch.
“Your Majesty, intelligence on Wu State’s force has been gathered,” said the black fox demon monarch obsequiously.
“Speak,”
“In the past month, various demon monarchs in Wu State followed your orders and probed the various cities,” said the black fox demon monarch. “These attacks led to 91 third Firmament demon monarch casualties. We killed three Great Solar Godfiends and 15 Indestructible Godfiends.”
“What a joke.” The single-horned man laughed coldly. “The Imperial Lord has said that losing ten demon monarchs for the death of a Godfiend at the same level means success. However, we lost 30 demon monarchs dying for each Great Solar Godfiend. This is a huge loss.”
“At least we have figured out which Godfiends are stationed in Wu State.” The black fox demon monarch handed over the intelligence in a fawning manner. “This records the Godfiends of each prefecture in detail.”
The single-horned man shook his head. “It can only serve as a reference. The Godfiends will definitely redistribute their forces.”
The black fox demon monarch smiled obsequiously and said, “We are the first batch of demon monarchs to enter the human world. More demon monarchs will enter in time. Our strength will only increase.”
“Yes.” The single-horned man flipped through the dossier and said indifferently, “Let’s wait until we have more demon monarchs. We can slowly fight the humans. We need patience if we want to annihilate the humans.”
He was the only fourth Firmament demon monarch in Wu State. Unlike third Firmament demon monarchs, there were very few fourth Firmament demon monarchs in the Demon Realm. This was because one needed to reach the Realm of Dao and have an Essence Soul at a relatively young age to enter the fourth Firmament realm. The demons’ perceptivity was generally lower than humans, so it was very hard for them to condense an Essence Soul.
For the humans, at least one Great Solar Godfiend could become a Marquis Godfiend out of a few dozen Great Solar Godfiends. For the demons, only one fourth Firmament demon monarch could be produced out of hundreds of third Firmament demon monarchs. Thus, there were very few fourth Firmament demon monarchs. In the entire Demon realm, there were less than 2000 fourth Firmament demon monarchs! The demons didn’t care if third Firmament demon monarchs died, but a fourth Firmament demon monarch? The demons placed great importance on them.
There were very few third Firmament demon monarchs with a chance of breaking through to the fourth Firmament. Too few were willing to come to the human world. The demons’ upper echelons exhausted all means before they managed to get 40 such demons to enter the human world. They never expected to lose 30 percent of them the moment they entered!
Only 27 such demons managed to sneak into the human world successfully! There were very few fourth Firmament demon monarchs in the human world! As a densely-populated state with a lot of food, Wu State was highly valued by the demons. This was why Greater Demon Monarch Fu Jiao was in charge of the area.