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153: Chapter 153 The War Between Gods and Demons”...?” Fu Hao suspected he had misread it.

”The World Tree... is gone?”

In the live broadcast, the World Tree, which should have been there, had vanished without a trace, leaving behind only a bottomless, massive crater.

Not only the World Tree, but the Kalis Empire army that had destroyed the Endel Kingdom seemed to have evaporated as well.

According to footage from players who witnessed it from afar, the Kalis army had vanished as if they had used a teleportation gem, and shortly after, the World Tree had instantly hidden itself as if it had been reverse-summoned.

If the witnesses had been closer, they might have discovered more details, but with the existing footage, they could only confirm the sequence of the army and the World Tree disappearing; there was no further information.

”Could it be... reverse-summoned?” Fu Hao, holding onto a glimmer of hope, opened the Summoned Beast interface and randomly selected a Summoned Beast that hadn’t been reinforced to +10 to attempt a summon—the result was the same as when he summoned the World Tree: it failed.

”Not a reverse-summon. Then...” The only remaining possibility was that someone had transferred the World Tree elsewhere.

Fu Hao didn’t know if this was the intention of the Kalis Empire, but the plan to create the Dragon Legion had completely gone up in smoke; that much was certain.

”Aaaaah—! My Dragon Legion, aaaaah!” Fu Hao fell into despair and roared. Although there was no need to worry about damaging his throat in virtual reality, the roar still consumed mental effort, and he quickly stopped—perhaps because he had experienced too many shocks lately, his spirit recovered exceptionally quickly.

”But the things that need to be done must be done.” Fu Hao opened the community menu and quickly browsed to see if there were any posts about the World Tree being found. If the World Tree had been transferred to a human nation, given its scale, it would have been impossible for players not to discover it, but he ultimately found no news about the World Tree.

The Demon Realm was divided into 112 regions: 101 were directly ruled by various Demon Kings, and the remaining 11 were unruled areas where no demons resided, categorized only by their characteristics.

The ”Hell Realm” previously mentioned by the Demon King of Desire Alkunia was one of these 112 regions—it was the largest of the 11 unruled areas.

Strangely, not only demons but even monsters could not survive in the Hell Realm, simply because the concentration of Demonic Energy here far exceeded that of other places in the Demon Realm.

Demonic Energy was different from Holy Power. Absorbing too much Holy Power had no side effects, but the ”fluidity” of Demonic Energy was extremely high: the greater the concentration difference, the faster it flowed from low concentration to high concentration.

Therefore, any living being carrying Demonic Energy that entered the Hell Realm would have their Demonic Energy instantly drained. Unless they were absolute-level monsters like Mimics or demon-level entities like Demon Kings, they couldn’t last even a second—even the Demon Kings avoided the Hell Realm.

The Transfer Demon King Bertold, like the other Demon Kings, did not want to go near the Hell Realm, but he could not disobey the orders of ”that person.” He personally delivered the World Tree to the deepest part of the Hell Realm, then transferred out at a speed far exceeding his usual pace, escaping the Hell Realm.

”Phew...” A tension unbecoming of a Demon King appeared on Bertold’s face, followed by a huge sigh of relief—even though he was a unique existence among high-ranking Demon Kings, he had nearly been swallowed by the Demonic Energy in the deepest part of the Hell Realm, where the concentration was at its peak.

”Putting the World Tree in such a place, can it hold up...? But now it can’t be taken out either...” He doubted whether the World Tree, despite being a super-tier existence, could withstand such dense Demonic Energy. But this curiosity was quickly replaced by other matters: ”Oh right, now is not the time to think about that.”

According to that person, the God-Demon War was about to restart. Bertold had handed over his ruling territory to other Demon Kings for over ten years; now that the war was imminent, he had to reorganize his demon forces as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Patem, whose physical body was sealed in the deepest part of the Hell Realm and surrounded by thick Demonic Energy, was observing the World Tree from the perspective of his soul—to be precise, observing the process of Demonic Energy seeping into the World Tree’s fruit.

”Just as I thought.” Patem had lived in the primordial plane for over two hundred thousand years, and although he had spent most of his time improving his ability values, he had also absorbed a great deal of knowledge, including that of the Loto Tribe civilization (after all, once knowledge accumulates to a certain point, it can also assist in increasing ability values).

His understanding of the World Tree was detailed enough to fill several encyclopedias—this stemmed from his research into the relationship between elves, elemental spirits, and the World Tree (elemental spirits, like the Loto Tribe, came from a brand-new realm different from the primordial plane).

Although the plan to find a way into the Loto Tribe’s realm by analyzing the relationship between the World Tree and elemental spirits had failed, the accumulated knowledge had ultimately come in handy: if he didn’t have this knowledge, how would he have thought of injecting Demonic Energy into the World Tree’s fruit to transform it into a monster?

Even if the speculation based on knowledge and experience had a solid basis, there was still a possibility of error. Patem, who had lived for over two hundred thousand years, was rarely nervous for a moment—but this tension was quickly dispelled by reality: his prediction was coming true.

”About three months left.” Patem estimated the ripening time of the fruit. According to his calculations, in three months, the World Tree fruits would all be ripe, and what would be born then would not be Mythical Rank elemental spirits, but monsters filled with the Demonic Energy of the Hell Realm.

This was consistent with the calculations of the elves who had long observed the World Tree, which showed that the Demonic Energy had not affected the growth rate of the fruit.

”Three months... just three months...” Three months later, once these monsters were released into the human world, humanity would perish, and he would be able to step into the realm of the Loto Tribe.

For an existence that had lived for over two hundred thousand years, three months was but a blink of an eye, but because the ultimate goal was within reach, these three months seemed as difficult to endure as long years.

Patem forced himself to calm down, remembering that he had to pave the way for the monsters’ march: ”The possibility of failure is almost zero, but I must not let my guard down at the final moment.”

”At least the Kalis Empire can no longer play a role... I must formulate a strategy around The Seven Legends.”

He began to think about the details of the God-Demon War—this war was different from the last one: the last one was to completely exterminate humanity, while this one was merely to pave the way for the monsters born from the World Tree fruits to be released into the human world.

If the monsters could obey his or other Demon Kings’ commands, there would be no need to forcibly start a war while the demon forces had not yet fully recovered.

But monsters were different from demons; they could not be controlled and held hostility toward both humans and demons. Therefore, Patem had to restart the God-Demon War at all costs:

Only by letting the demons open a path in advance and setting up a ”Demonic Energy Barrier” outside the Demon Realm to keep the Demonic Energy from dissipating could the uncontrollable monsters be sent into the human world.

But he didn’t intend to just go through the motions; instead, he planned to fight more intensely than last time.

Last time, because the demons were his final trump card, he fought relatively conservatively; now, there was no need to cherish the demons, just focus on the results—he even planned to destroy Aria’s Holy Barrier using the brutal method of sacrificing a large number of demons.

The Holy Barrier was like transparent glass; those who saw it for the first time would always be curious: what sound would it make when it shattered? A clattering sound? Or a cracking sound?

But when the barrier shattered, no one could hear the answer—the painful roars of hundreds of thousands of demons before their deaths had long since drowned out the sound of the barrier breaking.

Without warning, the demons launched a large-scale charge, slamming their bodies against the Holy Barrier like madmen. This scene was the height of inefficiency, but at this moment, no one had the leisure to rebuke these crazed demons.

”It’s coming!”

”Run!”

The corpses of hundreds of thousands of demons piled up into a mountain, and the subsequent demon army trampled over the mountain of corpses to continue the charge. Facing such a demon army, the priests and soldiers who were fighting head-on suppressed their hatred for the demons, their desire for revenge, their love for humanity, and their duty to protect, and turned to flee.

Among the fleeing crowd, there were a few players mixed in:

”!@#!@$%@”

”Are they crazy?”

”Th... those are all demons?”

The players kept looking back as they fled. Although they were running instinctively along with the NPCs, for them, more important than not dying was recording this rare scene that one would encounter once in a lifetime with their footage.

Thanks to the ”reporter spirit” of the players, news of the large-scale demon invasion spread rapidly.

And Yongyuan, who loved Leonhardt and community gossip the most, immediately forwarded the information to Leonhardt and The Seven Legends the moment the news about the demons appeared in the community.