Yang Kai's figure materialized as though he had been lurking in their midst the entire time.
The eight Demon Kings, led by Fili, stiffened and bowed in unison. "My Lord!"
Yang Kai nodded, offering no praise, no pleasantries — just a single sentence: "I want every blade of grass in Torrent Fortress gone, every living thing in turmoil!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, he waved his hand, and all eight Demon Kings were expelled from the Minor World, cast back into that great hall.
Fili, Mo Ke Tuo, and the others exchanged glances. A chill rose from the depths of their hearts, cold enough to freeze the blood in their veins. All eight Demon Kings understood — Lord Wu Niu was avenging his own people. The curse and vow he had left behind a month ago had been no idle talk. He intended to see them through to the letter, and they were the most powerful tools in his hands.
"Let's discuss this," Fili said, rubbing his temples with a headache. Though he had no flesh left — nothing but a bare skeleton — he still felt the familiar throb of a headache. Lord Wu Niu had set them a thorny problem indeed.
Their strength was nothing to scoff at, but the demons in Torrent Fortress numbered well over a hundred thousand. There was simply no way they could slaughter that many on their own. To complete the mission, they would need to resort to certain measures.
The one thing working in their favor was that the Demon Kings originally garrisoned in Torrent Fortress were already dead. The fortress was leaderless. If the eight of them played their cards right, they might be able to seize control of the place and then devise a way to fulfill their task.
The eight Demon Kings gathered in the hall and began deliberating in earnest, exchanging ideas one after another. Yet the topic of discussion was not how to deal with the foreign invaders — it was how to wipe out every last demon in Torrent Fortress.
Pool their wisdom, and a plan quickly took shape. The eight Demon Kings dispersed.
One day later, rumors began swirling through Torrent Fortress. All manner of stories started circulating among the demon population — some claimed a foreign army was approaching, others whispered that the Demon Kings had defected to the enemy, and still others insisted the demons were on the verge of a catastrophic defeat.
No one knew where the rumors originated, but they spread through the crowds like wildfire, fermenting with every passing hour.
The demons garrisoned in Torrent Fortress had been idle for far too long, yearning for battle day after day, their spirits restless and on edge. These rumors only magnified those simmering emotions. The entire fortress became shrouded in an atmosphere of unease.
At first, the effect of the rumors was not especially pronounced. But as time passed and no Demon King stepped forward to deny anything, suspicion began to fester among many of the demons.
Three days in, the emotions stoked by the countless rumors erupted in full. Not a single demon could remain unaffected — whether willingly or through circumstance, everyone was drawn in, their capacity for rational thought utterly shattered.
It was then that Fili and the other Demon Kings stepped forward. Each gathered a contingent of followers, and together they divided up the fortress's hundred-thousand-plus demons among themselves.
Then the civil war began.
Within Torrent Fortress, large and small bands of demons clashed in the streets and alleyways, attacking without question or reason. Demons fell in droves, and the fortress nearly overflowed with blood. Comrades who may have shared a drink just days before were now mortal enemies to one another.
No one understood why this was happening. All they knew was that it was the Demon Kings' orders. They only knew to obey — they never asked why.
No one could imagine that the exalted Demon Kings would turn traitor, and certainly no one expected those same Demon Kings to point the butcher's blade at their own kind.
A few Demon Marshals and shrewd Demon Generals did catch wind of something amiss, but the clever ones never lived long. Fili and the others had been keeping a close eye on the marshals and generals, and the moment anyone grew suspicious, they would manufacture some pretext or excuse and cut them down.
Torrent Fortress had become a colossal meat grinder, churning and shredding over a hundred thousand demons trapped within its walls…
The civil war never slowed from the moment it began. By the final hours, every surviving demon had eyes glazed red with madness. Barely conscious, they mechanically raised their weapons and cut down anything that looked like an enemy.
The fighting lasted three days and three nights. Over a hundred thousand demons, split into eight armies, slaughtered one another without mercy. The streets and alleys of Torrent Fortress were heaped with countless corpses, crawling with flies and vermin, reeking of rot.
Three days later, fewer than ten thousand remained alive — every last one wounded, many missing limbs, whimpering in low, pitiful moans.
The eight Demon Kings hovered in the air above, gazing down in silence at the scene below. It was a vision of hell itself.
Then, acting in unison, they struck — sending the remaining ten thousand crippled demons straight to the afterlife, and reducing all of Torrent Fortress to nothing along with them.
A figure flickered into view. Yang Kai appeared as if from thin air.
The eight Demon Kings bowed respectfully.
"You'll follow me from now on," Yang Kai said. After what had happened at Torrent Fortress, there was no possibility of Fili and the others ever returning to the demon camp.
The eight Demon Kings nodded, their expressions complicated.
Yang Kai opened the passage to the Minor World and let them file in one by one. Only then did he turn and take to the sky, flying off in a particular direction.
Ten days later, Yang Kai arrived above a stretch of dense jungle. His deep gaze swept the ground below, searching, and after a moment — as if he had spotted something — he dove straight toward a certain spot.
The instant he landed, he locked onto a direction and barked: "Get out here!"