Chapter 162 Dark Passage

Hearing Izhaks' words, a sense of déjà vu immediately washed over Hao Ren. He stared blankly at the obsidian spires that were everywhere around him: "Dig up ten obsidian blocks to build a gate, then light it in the middle with a lighter?"

Izhaks looked at Hao Ren with a bewildered expression: "What are you talking about?"

Lili butted Hao Ren away with her head: "Ignore him, the landlord's having another fit. Speaking of which, big guy, how can you build a portal to the mortal realm? Isn't it said that it's very difficult for demons to go to the human world, with layers of restrictions and being detected..."

"The various races of the mortal realm have established a very strict spatial gate detection network in their world, specifically to provide early warning for spatial transmissions from the demon plane. In addition, the demon space itself is located in the deepest part of the entire space-time bubble zone, which is why it is difficult for demons to travel to the human world at will," Izhaks smiled. "But many years ago, I frequently went to the human world and left some 'secret passages.'"

After saying that, he looked a little proud: "In the past hundreds of years, I didn't just know how to charge around blindly—I am a demon with knowledge. Knowledge is power."

"A business built up over hundreds of years, but in the end, it was overturned in ten years," Lili said bluntly, "What a pity."

The expression on Izhaks' face changed, and then turned into a sigh: "Alas... Perhaps it was really fate. Everything went smoothly for the previous hundreds of years, but in the last ten years, I don't know why, legendary heroes emerged from the various races of the human world one after another. The army to conquer the Demon King grew like mushrooms after rain. In the end, on average, every village could produce a hero, and they were all the kind of unkillable cockroaches. One of my generals, the Western Demon King, was killed by a hero from Xiqiaotou Village, Yafalon City, Nankun Province, Derian Kingdom. He died with everlasting regret..."

Hao Ren put himself in his shoes and thought that if he, as a Demon King, was suddenly killed by such a hero from Xiqiaotou Village, he would also die with everlasting regret...

But in fact, Hao Ren could understand why Izhaks encountered such a storm of resistance at the end: as a demon, his understanding of "human nature" was still too shallow. He failed to see how much potential was hidden in those seemingly weak mortal races. A moral tyrant, no matter how moral, is still a tyrant. Even if his goals are noble, he is incompatible with human nature. In the end, the various mortal races forced to the limit will inevitably produce countless armies of conquest—anyway, they don't want their lives anymore, who isn't a hero?

A hero is, in the final analysis, a desperado with a license to kill. If a bandit leader is forced to fight a dragon, that's also called a hero...

The only thing this place doesn't lack is obsidian. The entire plain is full of it. Those black spires, tens to hundreds of meters high and shaped like bamboo shoots, are the purest obsidian ore sources in the entire world. The "obsidian" of this world is very different from the volcanic veins of the same name on Earth. It refers to a kind of stone produced in the demon plane and other places with similar environments. They are "grown" out of the ground by underground magma columns after they have penetrated a layer of metal-rich strata. They are extremely hard and have good magical resonance properties. They can be processed into various enchanted weapons and armor, and can also be used as building materials for altars, portals, and the like. However, this kind of thing can only be tempered in the special magma of the demon plane to remove its brittleness, otherwise it is a hard but extremely brittle fragile material, so its use range is very narrow among the various races of the human world.

In the demon plane, things made of obsidian can be seen everywhere.

Lili was a husky with a strange interest in all kinds of stones. When she heard that she was going to dig obsidian, she immediately became excited. She trotted to the obsidian spire next to her and started helping with the mining. The tools she used were naturally Frostmourne and Fire Very Happy—the latter was an advanced product of Fire Very Happy after being tempered in the lava of hell.

Vivian had already thought of the name for the big dog's next evolution. If Lili wanted to strengthen her claws again, she would be named Fire Very Happy Dog. In contrast, the ultimate evolved version of Frostmourne would be called Frostmourne Crying Like a Dog...

Anyway, Hao Ren now felt that it was difficult for him to keep up with the worldview of bats and dogs.

Lili excitedly dug up at least seven or eight tons of obsidian and brought it back. Izhaks threw these stones into the nearby lava river, using magic to control these black stones to rise and fall in the lava for tempering.

Under the dual action of the green evil energy runes and the temperature of the lava, the brittle and hard black ore gradually lost its rocky texture, slowly became like metal, and began to soften and take shape.

Lili carefully picked up a piece of obsidian that looked great and stuffed it into her pocket. Vivian found that the girl's pocket was bulging and rattling as she walked. Needless to say, it was full of all kinds of broken stones: "Isn't your hoard of treasures a bit indiscriminate?"

"You're not allowed to insult my hobby!" Lili jumped up and argued with Vivian, "Appreciating strange stones is an elegant interest! Wu Peifu back in the day..."

Vivian casually pressed Lili back: "Don't jump, the stones are falling out, and Wu Peifu doesn't play with stones either. Do you think you're the only one who knows him?"

At this time, Izhaks had already melted the obsidian into a ball of hot metal. He fused these hot things with his demon energy to make a circular, altar-like thing. One by one, green demon runes emerged as the obsidian altar continued to cool down. Hao Ren felt that as those runes were connected into sentences, some mysterious power was pulling the space around the altar, and he watched as the air above the altar began to distort into a spherical mirror.

"This portal is one-time use," Izhaks fixed the last few runes in the air around the altar, forming thirteen lines of symbols floating in the air with magic. "The landing point is in a cave in Kardhush, where I left a foothold when I was traveling hundreds of years ago. No one except me knows about it, so it should be safe."

Hao Ren weighed the data terminal in his hand: "Go ahead and scout the way."

The data terminal immediately said righteously: "As a PDA, why should this machine..."

Hao Ren didn't give it a chance to finish, and threw it into the portal.

After a while, the voice of the data terminal sounded in his mind: "It's safe here. Also, this machine wants to discuss with you the use of high-tech products..."

Hao Ren waved his hand, signaling the others to go over quickly, and then glanced at Izhaks: "What will happen to this door after we go in?"

Izhaks placed a circle of dark red runes around the portal: "It will self-destruct in ten minutes. I hope the people from the Allied Forces will come here to check it out at that time."

Hao Ren said "oh" and stepped into the space that was distorting like a mirror.

After a slight dizziness and bizarre illusions, he found himself standing in a strange cave.

The cave was large, with a spacious and cool interior, and the light from the exit was not far ahead. Hao Ren took a deep breath, his nostrils filled with the long-lost cool and fresh air, and sighed comfortably: "Hey—it's still comfortable to return to the mortal realm!"

Nangong Wuyue was the last to come out of the portal. She had transformed back into human form and changed her clothes. After breathing in the cool and humid air again, this siren was as happy as a child: "Revived! Revived! Revived!~~~"

Hao Ren couldn't wait to see what the other space-time bubbles in this world looked like besides the demon plane, so he ran to the entrance in three steps and two steps. The open and bright scenery outside swept away the oppression he felt in the demon plane!

What caught his eye was a verdant mountain range. This cave was hidden in the mountains, and above was a clear sky with thin clouds. Light mist and gauze-like clouds covered the seemingly reachable air. Hao Ren looked into the distance and saw a city through the gap in the green mountains—the city seemed to be on the plain on the other side of the mountain, quite a distance away from here. Looking from a distance, it was full of exotic charm.

Lili looked at the scene in front of her in surprise: "Wow! This place is much better than the demon space!"

"It's hard to imagine that the structure of this world is so strange. Some places are full of magma, and some places have green mountains and clear waters. It's like a series of alien planets connected by portals," Vivian also looked at the magnificent scenery in front of her with some surprise. Having just returned from the hellish demon plane, she felt a bit uncomfortable seeing such scenery, "Haven't you figured out how this kind of structure was formed?"

"The old man has been researching in this direction, but unfortunately he couldn't explain how space-time bubbles are naturally produced until the year he died," Izhaks shook his head. "Come on, we have to rush to that city as soon as possible. This place is safer than the demon plane. As long as we are on the outskirts of the city, spatial transmission can be used freely."