Baator Hell Promotion

"Elves may be skilled at strumming harps and weaving tapestries, but they wouldn't let chisels and hammers wear down their delicate fingers." Brand snorted, expressing his complete disdain for the elves. "Let alone building an impenetrable underground castle. Elves always try to find ways to use magic to trick things. Only the good guys of the Longbeard clan work down to earth, chiseling one thing at a time."

"I just want to know if the dwarves have any tricks to help me skip a few thousand steps," Frodis complained, wiping the sweat off her forehead. Dragons possessed far greater stamina than humans, but even she found the seemingly endless spiral staircase somewhat overwhelming.

"There's nothing we can do. The main path downstairs leading to the entrance hall has collapsed. We can only try to find a way around it from upstairs," the poet shrugged. "It's because we don't know how to walk through walls."

Lady Dragon Vein sighed resignedly, lifted her leaden legs, and mechanically climbed up. After all, a staircase wide enough for three people to walk side by side was better than a tunnel underground where you couldn't lift your head.

Ugo stretched out his hand to block it, and almost hit Frodis in the face. She lost her balance in her hasty dodge, and quickly grabbed the dwarf's head to avoid rolling down.

"What happened that made you so eager to kill me?" After apologizing to the dwarf, Frodis glared at Ugo and asked unhappily.

Ugo did not answer, because everyone saw that Carlo, who had gone to investigate, hurried back.

"You must come and see it!" The lean orc rushed over and gestured, his fangs almost poking his eyes with excitement. "I don't know how to describe it."

Everyone followed the gray-skinned orc up another five hundred steps until they reached a transfer platform. The door facing outward had shattered into several indistinguishable pieces of wood, which lay on the balcony outside. Hopper was the first to step forward, standing at the edge of the balcony and looking down.

Dead body.

Below the balcony was a spacious hall. Six tall square pillars surrounded an ornate stone chair on a raised platform in the center. A corridor paved with colorful tiles led down the steps leading to two heavy wooden doors, dividing the hall into two equal parts. In the left corner of the hall, countless armored corpses formed a mountain. Judging by the length of their armor and the occasional long beards, they were likely the dwarven inhabitants of the City of Thousand Rocks.

However, the hall wasn't solely filled with dwarf corpses. On the floor near the door and across the right side of the hall lay a dozen spherical, empty shells larger than carriages. Although still far away, the large, smooth holes in the shells' faces and the long, tubular debris scattered on the ground allowed Hopper to immediately identify them.

"So many beholders dead?" Brand came over, also startled. The City of Thousand Rocks was a dwarven city, after all, and the height of the fence didn't obstruct his vision, allowing him to easily see the scene below. "What could possibly kill a dozen beholders at once?"

Hopper shook her head. Beholders were powerful magical creatures, possessing not only versatile eye rays, but also a force field that prohibited all spellcasting and a mouthful of sharp fangs. She figured even if she faced just one, she'd have a hard time escaping. Even high-ranking devils rarely managed to defeat a Beholder in a one-on-one fight.

"What's down there? Where does the door lead to?" The big Ugo obviously had no interest in corpses that had been dead for hundreds of years. He was concerned about more practical issues.

"Down below is the throne room, also known as the Hall of Proverbs. Queen Shirley once sat on the throne between the pillars to receive visitors." The dwarf pointed to the carved throne and said, "According to oral poetry, when Queen Shirley was still alive, the pillars would have been hung with tapestries and gauze to prevent reckless outsiders from peeping at the queen's face."

"That door should be the balcony leading to the banquet hall. During grand celebrations, the Queen would step onto the balcony to greet the attendees in the banquet hall below," Brand said as he led the way down. "It's hard to tell from such a distance what a bunch of dead eye demons with missing eyeballs are. We better go down."

When he reached the bottom, he found that the Lust Demon had already flown down and landed on the Eye Demon's corpse closest to the stairs.

Standing closer, the dwarfs felt the bulk of the body on the ground was even more enormous. Its servants had recently caused them a lot of trouble in the tunnels, but it itself had returned to the abyss decades, even centuries ago, and collapsed on the cold stone pavement.

"There was a fire here," said the succubus crouching on the beholder's body. The beholder's massive eye beneath Hopper's feet had long since shriveled up, leaving only a chitinous shell. The once bright purple shell seemed to have been scorched, mostly black and brittle. Hopper stepped on it lightly, and the shell began to crumble with a creaking sound.

"Its wound doesn't look like it was inflicted by a dwarven weapon," the Dragon Vein Lady said, glancing at the Beholder's back. There was a straight, smooth wound, almost slicing through its entire back. "It's too long and too smooth. It must have been caused by some kind of magic, perhaps a wizard's sword."

"The fire must have spread throughout the hall," Brand gestured at the bare, charred pillars and walls. "The pillars next to the throne are all burned black. I think the curtain must have burned at that time."

"Perhaps all my people died in that fire," the dwarf said sadly, his nose red. "It seems certain that the enemy that destroyed this place was a red dragon."

Out of caution, Carlo had been lagging behind the others to cover the rear, and was the last one to come down.

"What about the great enemy? Is he dead?" the orc asked curiously. He did not stand on the stairs like the others, but was the first to step onto the charred ground.

"There were definitely no beholders when the Thousand Rocks disappeared," Frodis wiped her hands on her cloak, wrapped herself tightly, and replied, "It seems that the red dragon didn't die in the accident when the castle disappeared. At least it lived long enough to kill these beholders."

"Really?" The gray-skinned orc took a few steps forward, wanting to see if there were any jewels left on the throne that had survived the fire. "I've heard that dragons are powerful magical creatures, and their magic can subtly change their surroundings. I've heard many poems and stories about red dragons, all of which say they're as hot as lava. But I don't feel any warmth right now."

"Actually, do you feel it?" He sighed, rubbed his hands and asked in confusion, "Why do I feel colder and colder?"

Before the orc finished speaking, Hopper heard a gust of wind. The biting cold wind went along her neck and into her clothes, like a clammy old man sticking to her body and sucking away all the heat.

"Look over there!" Hugo roared.

Hopper turned his head. Threads of black smoke continued to spew from the silent pile of dwarf corpses. A biting wind blew through the hall, the empty wind enveloping everyone's heat and the dust on the ground, forming a huge tornado.

Then, one after another, shimmering, transparent spirits floated out of the armor, their faces frozen in the agony of their final moments. The spirits screamed, shouting in Dwarvish, a language Hopper couldn't understand, as they were sucked into the tornado.

The spirits in the tornado were contaminated by black smoke and dust, and were tangled into a ball, and their cries became lower and lower.

Finally, the hall fell silent, leaving only a single, massive spirit atop the pile of corpses. Black smoke swirled around its stout body like a cloak, drifting and dancing. And at the top of the cloak, where a face should have been, there was only a deep darkness.

A pair of eyes glowing like charcoal fire opened in the darkness.

Chapter 60: Bound Spirits

"Oh my one-eyed god, what the hell is that!"

Carlo remained stiff, not daring to move, and questioned the dwarf with a hissing sound from the corner of his mouth.

A spirit taller than an ogre floated silently in the air, its cloak billowing in the wind from the spirit world. When the cloak on its chest was lifted, Hopper could catch a glimpse of its gray beard underneath.

"They're bound spirits." The succubus sheathed his sword and unsheathed the longbow from his back. Runes flickered on the bow, and the entire bow erupted in a burst of blue flame. "They are the mortal remains of souls who died in agony. Because their death was too painful, their intense emotions were bound to the earth."

"In other words, it is a resident of the Thousand Rocks City?" Frodis glanced at the burning longbow, put the dagger back into his boots, took out a leather-bound book from the bag on his waist and began to read it urgently.

"Isn't it a bit too late to look it up now? Can you cast Fireball again?" Brand said harshly, and like a dragon vein, he began to take things out of his waist bag. "Before coming to Hell, I prepared a lot of things for the trip to Qianyan City. It seems that they will be useful after all."

However, before he could tell his teammates what to prepare, the bound spirit spoke.

"Moradin Red?" (Dwarven: Son of Moradin) Its voice was like a chicken with its trachea cut open, mixed with the sound of leaking air. "Moradin Red!"

The wraith, gigantic yet weightless and agile, leaped high into the air and swooped down like a dark cloud, its burning eyes fixed on the dwarf.

Brand didn't even bother to take out his things. He screamed and started running upstairs with his short legs.

"Go and get him back!" the demon ordered Carlo. The gray-skinned orc nodded and quickly took two steps at a time up the stairs to chase him.

At the same time, Ugo roared, raised his shield, and rushed forward with his axe held high.

"Don't go over there!" The Devil and the Dragon Vein roared at the same time. Hopper's rocket was faster than her words. A bright line of fire lit up the gloomy hall, revealing an even more ominous scene.

The pile of corpses did not calm down after the bound spirit left. On the contrary, one broken skeleton after another began to move on their own.

The tall brown-skinned orc crashed directly into the body of the bound spirit and passed through it without any hindrance. He even fell forward due to excessive force and had to roll on the spot to reduce the impact.

He looked back in confusion, only to meet the spirit's blazing eyes. A hand as cold as ice plunged into his chest, gripping his heart. The orc swung his axe and shield with all his might, but each time they pierced the spirit's ethereal form in vain, even his heart struggled mightily in the ghost's grasp. Yet, he could only feel his energy and warmth draining away from that insatiable hand. Each swing of his axe felt weaker, and dark spots began to appear before his eyes.

"Bang!" A handful of sparks exploded in the bound spirit's head - after the previous arrows passed through it harmlessly, Hopper's fourth arrow finally hurt the bound spirit.

The bound spirit let out a howl like crying and let go of the orc. Ugo could no longer support his body and fell to the ground.

Before the spirit could do anything else, red light flashed three times, and flames exploded across its chest, creating a brilliant sea of ​​flowers. Even the spirit's body, shrouded in black smoke, was twisted by the magic, trembling and coming to a stop.

Hopper took this opportunity to fire a few more arrows, forcing back the skeletons approaching Ugo. He said to Miss Longmai, who was already somewhat exhausted, "I will lead the bound spirit away, and you find a way to drag that orc back."

Frodis also knew that now was not the time to throw a tantrum. The bound spirit had gradually recovered, and the magic just now did not cause any fatal effect on it.

Hopper soared high, and while the spirit hadn't recovered yet, he launched a dozen rockets, almost forming a line, raining down upon it. However, the effect wasn't very noticeable. Hopper knew that ghostly monsters like the spirit didn't exist entirely in the material world. Their essence was a mass of nothingness and darkness, and even enchanted arrows couldn't guarantee 100% effectiveness.

The bound spirit seemed to be completely enraged. It let out a high-pitched roar that was a mixture of a child's and a woman's voice, and rushed towards the succubus.

Hopper's heart trembled, and she quickly descended to avoid the force. The spirit brushed past her scalp, its chill chilling to the bone. The succubus didn't even dare turn her head; the angry shrieks behind her informed her that the spirit was drawing closer. She was forced to dodge the spirit through numerous turns, sudden stops, and circling maneuvers. The spirit, without a physical form, was faster and more agile than she, but its purpose was too clear, and its size too immense.

Just as the Devil used gravity to accelerate her descent, narrowly avoiding another ferocious pounce from the Bound Spirit, a series of star-like purple missiles shot out from the corner, bypassing her body and forcing the Bound Spirit to retreat continuously.

Force magic! Hopper was overjoyed. This was one of the few things that could inflict full damage to incorporeal creatures. While the bound spirits were still recovering, she quickly flew towards the corner where the missile came from.

Frodis, Brand, and the two orcs hid behind an exceptionally large beholder corpse, surrounded by a circle of shattered skeletons. It seemed Carlo had found Brand; it was the scroll the dwarf had used to launch the magic missiles that had aided Hopper.

"Do you know anything about this monster?" Lady Dragon Vein asked anxiously. "Brand has a plan, but it's too risky."

"The bound spirits fear light," Hopper blurted out. Seeing the dwarf opening his mouth to speak, he added, "It's real sunlight, not some magical imitation."

The dwarf shut up. Frodis tried to speak, but before she could finish her words, the bound spirit had already caught up. Carlo said nothing, climbing over the corpse and rushing forward.

Before the demon could even shout, the bound spirit's attack arrived. A hand made almost entirely of bone fiercely grabbed the thief's head. The skinny orc's agility was astonishing. He almost doubled back to avoid the attack, and then used the gray dagger to slash upwards.

The bound spirit let out a deafening cry. This insignificant insect had inflicted the deepest pain. The gray-skinned orc rolled on the ground, hurling the gray dagger in his hand. Without even glancing at his results, he took off running. But Hopper, standing behind the bound spirit, could see clearly that the ordinary dagger didn't penetrate the bound spirit's ethereal form like Ugo's. Instead, it lodged in its flesh as if it had struck a solid object. It fell to the ground with a clang after a long moment, leaving a massive wound on the bound spirit's body.

"This is it." Perhaps to make up for his recent desertion, the dwarf held up the crystal bottle in his hand before the succubus could speak. "This is a weapon specifically designed to deal with those floating dead ghosts—ghost oil. Apply it to a sword to quickly damage those ghosts. The City of Thousand Rocks has been lost for hundreds of years, so I guessed there must be undead creatures."

"How much ghost oil do you have?" Hopper took the big-bellied crystal bottle. The gray viscous liquid that was constantly rotating inside was already half gone, and the remaining one was probably enough to apply to a weapon.

The dwarf and the dragon vein lady looked at each other, and Hopper had a bad feeling in his heart.

"In fact, this is the only bottle left," the dwarf said awkwardly. "Our original plan was to have you get close and kill the monster with one blow."

Chapter 61 Sunlight

"Perhaps I was a little too gentle. What makes you think you can order me around, huh?" The succubus grabbed the dwarf's beard, lowered his head, and spoke in a sinister tone.

Brand could see the eyes burning with emerald fire even through the veil. The gaze of the bound spirit made him run away, while the gaze of the succubus made his legs so weak that he couldn't even run.

"That's why I said the risk is too great, my lord." Frodis wanted to reach out and pull the dwarf away but was afraid of angering the demon. At the same time, she glanced nervously into the distance - the injured bound spirit had transferred its hatred to Carlo, who was avoiding the dangerous enemy at the pillars around the throne with his thin body and agile movements.

"What you just said reminded me that there is another way," Lady Dragon Vein said earnestly, "I can summon sunlight. Even if it's only for a moment, it's real sunlight."

The succubus turned her head suddenly. Dragon Vein's words went beyond her common sense. Even the priests who worshipped the sun could not say that they could summon real sunlight. This was a true miracle.

"Are you sure?" She asked suspiciously, letting go of her beard. Her mind quickly searched for the knowledge she had learned. Magic? Strange items? Secret techniques? What on earth could be able to do this?

"I'm sure," Frodis said with certainty. Her tone didn't sound fake. "But I need time, at least a quarter of an hour to prepare."

"But Carlo can't hold on that long." Frodis's heart was beating like a drum. She knew she was getting too aggressive, but the more teammates survived, the more chances she would have to leave alive.

Hopper understood her hint and straightened up, looking at the orc who had distracted the bound spirit in the distance. He was still dodging with all his might. Judging from the occasional green light that flickered from Carlo's body, he might still have some kind of defensive magic protection. But it couldn't hold out for much longer.

"I'll give you a quarter of an hour," Hopper nodded. She wasn't easily angered; her outburst was merely a gentle reminder of who was truly the master. She had also just realized something, which made her think it wasn't a bad idea to let Frodis maintain hope.

"Shorty, you are responsible for clearing the approaching skeletons and protecting them," she ordered, pointing to Ugo and Frodis who were about to wake up in a daze. "If you run away again, believe me, I will make you run to the end of time."

Brand nodded nervously, picked up Ugo's axe with both hands, and watched the demon leap into the sky.

Carlo felt like he had reached the peak of his life. His hand-eye coordination had never been so high. He kept stopping, rolling, circling, and even falling backwards, repeatedly narrowly avoiding the ghostly claws of the bound spirits. He must have been caught once or twice, and the potion Brand had given him took effect at this time. A warm current surged from his abdomen, transforming into a shield that glowed green and helped him resist the ghostly hands.

However, as time passed, the light shield quickly became thinner, and its duration became shorter and shorter. After another mistake, he watched helplessly as the light shield shattered before him, the bone claws already on his face. He could only pray in his heart:

"Mother Stonehearth, help me! If I can get out alive this time, I will give up the risk and find a female orc to give you ten, no, fifteen cubs!"

What came even faster than the cold was the familiar feeling of tugging on his waist. A rope pulled him ten feet into the air, quickly moving away from the ghost that was seeking his life.

"Thank you, thank you," he muttered to the succubus and limped to his feet.

"We need to hold that thing off for a quarter of an hour," Hopper ordered without giving him time to react. "Run separately from me. Do you have anything that can attract it?"

"Yes, the dwarven holy water pure ale, which Brand gave me. I just didn't have my hands free." He took out a wooden barrel from his arms while running. "How do you want to use it? Sprinkling it directly on it might not work."

Hopper suddenly had an idea and thought of a way. He asked the orc, "You can make traps, right? Go build a catapult device that can launch the holy water jar. Do you understand what I mean?"

Carlo nodded, pushed himself up with his hands, rolled flexibly, and disappeared behind the pillar, leaving the Devil to face the Bound Spirit alone.

The bound spirit didn't continue chasing the orcs. It was no mindless skeleton, fully aware that the greatest threat to it in the throne room was the succubus before it. Magic and oil were used up each time, but the succubus's fire bows had no limit on the number of times they could be used.

Hopper and the Bound Spirit were facing each other from a distance. She didn't know why the Bound Spirit suddenly stopped, but it was just to delay time, so there was no need for her to act rashly.

The bound spirit hovered in mid-air, like a tattered robe hanging from a tree branch. Its burning eyes stared at the succubus, determined not to tangle with this devil who had played tricks on it so many times.

Hopper had already launched his arrow when he saw its movement, but it was too late. The bound spirit's hand plunged into his chest, forcibly ripping apart his sternum and cloak. Translucent dwarf heads emerged from its chest like a cluster of faint blue mushrooms, emitting a scream not unlike that of the human world.

The scream seemed to penetrate the demon's soul rather than the air. A deep weariness gripped her, and Hopper nearly fell headfirst.

However, as a demon skilled in mental magic, the succubus's nerves were not so easily broken. The whistling wind woke Hopper in time. She spread her wings and slid out between the floor and the bound spirits, avoiding the tragedy of breaking her neck.

At this moment, she also saw Carlo waving at her, and she flew towards the corpse where he was hiding without hesitation, followed by the bound spirit that was moving faster and faster.

Finally, as she passed the corpse, she felt a pain in her ankle. The icy chill of the undead spread up her left leg, and life continued to slip away from her. Hopper felt her wings growing heavier and heavier, and finally she could no longer bear it. She only had time to dodge the beholder corpse on the ground and turned to land on her back.

Hopper landed on the cold stone ground with a thud, fortunately having not flown high. Worse than the fall, she could barely feel her ankle. It was then that Hopper heard the sound she had been waiting to hear.

There was a click as the mechanism popped up, and something bubbling was launched into the air, penetrating the bound spirit that was about to cover the demon.

Hopper caught it. She ignored the bound spirit that raised its hands high in front of her, lay on the ground and pulled the bow as far as possible. The only thing in her eyes was the jar that had flown past the highest point and was slowly falling due to gravity.

The burning arrow passed harmlessly through the terrifying wraith, whose claws had already reached its chest. Hopper didn't care. Everything in her eyes slowed down. The arrow flew all the way like a snail, shattering the wooden jar and igniting the hissing beer.

With a bang, golden sparks illuminated the entire hall. The sparks splashed on the succubus's skin and burned small charred holes, but she laughed heartily.

The bound spirit was now like a huge torch. The burning holy water caused it pain it had never felt since its birth. The sacred flame ignited the darkness that created it. The resentful spirits in its body kept crying. It rolled and fled from the demon. The darkness around it flowed towards the still burning flame on its body like water.

The succubus stood up with Carlo's help and carefully drew her bow. Her injuries were not as severe as Ugo's, and as a winged creature, she didn't rely too much on her ankles.

The explosion of holy beer lasted only a short moment before darkness covered the bound spirit again, but its overall size had shrunk significantly.

Hopper could almost feel its uncertainty. Rockets, magic, ghost oil, and holy water—so many things it hadn't tried. Hopper raised his bow and arrow provocatively at it, and even felt it flinch, followed by a surge of anger.

However, it could no longer function.

Like the rising sun, a lady with her right hand raised jumped out from behind it. It was Flotis.

A golden rune was drawn on Longmai's palm, and a ray of real, golden sunlight, like the only hope in the darkness, shot out from the rune, dispelling all the darkness and evil spirits.

The bound spirit howled and fell to the ground. It had completely lost its ability to move under the sunlight, and the black smoke that made up its body was constantly melting away.

"No...don't...please." The face under the cloak twisted into a face with a crown and a short beard - just like Queen Shirley on the gold coin.

"Roar!" Before anyone could say anything, a brown figure leaped high into the air, even jumping over Frodis's head. The orc and his gray axe chopped into the queen's face with tremendous force, splitting the bound spirit in half.