Half a month later, ten thousand kilometers to the north of the Hundred Desolation Mountain, in a boundless red desert, a team of demon beasts was rushing at an amazingly high speed.
The demon beasts were all enormous in size. They were more than a hundred meters both in length and in width. The membranes all over their bodies bulged out, with pinky gas filled inside that made them look like balloons that were stitched together.
The gas stored inside the airbags was lighter than air, which made the beasts drift and fly in midair freely.
Such demon beasts were known as ‘Land Whales’. Their prototype was the commonly-seen giant sandworms in the deserts of the Blood Demon Sector. The experts of the demon race refined and altered their genes over hundreds of years unceasingly. Finally, they developed airbags that were similar to the swimming bladder and could generate an exceedingly light gas naturally inside the body.
Below the body of the Land Whales were six rows of spurts that evolved from cloacae, which could alter the direction of the beasts by spurting feeble air currents. In the meantime, soft tentacles almost a hundred meters long were growing on the two sides and the back of the Land Whales’ bodies. While grabbing the insects inside the desert, the tentacles could change the direction of the beast like paddles, accelerate and decelerate, and even hold down the passengers or goods.
Because their speed was high, and they were not picky about food, Land Whales had gradually become the most commonly-seen vehicles of the Blood Demon Sector across many territories.
The team of Land Whales had almost a hundred of them in total and stretched over dozens of kilometers long. The spurting air currents blew the red sand into the sky, as if a thick crimson dragon were rushing on the ground.
On the back of every Land Whale was dozens of densely distributed cabins whose edges were embedded with giant iron rings that were tied to the tentacles of the Land Whales tightly.
A lot of holes had been left on the wall of the giant cabins, from which screams and moans could vaguely be heard.
This was a slave-catching team that was returning with full loads.
In the Riot of Bloody Blade, a large batch of black-blood demons and chaotic-blood demons rebelled, and the fire of insurrection burned throughout the entire Blood Demon Sector.
While the leaders of the demon kingdoms were having a headache, it was a golden time for Void Turmoil City to take the advantage.
Before, the chaotic-blood demons could not be captured randomly, however lowly they were. A lot of excuses had to be made up first.
But now, it was much more convenient. With a claim that the victims were the accomplices of the Blade of Chaos, they were able to capture the chaotic-blood demons that were scattered in every corner of the Blood Demon Sector.
With the war between the Blood Demon Sector and the Heaven’s Origin Sector coming near, the demand on cannon fodder had soared. The bloody road leading to Void Turmoil City was always brimming with vehicles and screams.
The cabins on the back of every Land Whale had been fully packed. However, the slave-catchers were apparently quite experienced. They had divided the cabins with iron gauze. Although it was crammed, a minimum zone of activity was maintained so that the chaotic-blood demons captured would not be killed on a large scale.
Inside one of the cabins at the rear of the team of demon beasts, Li Yao and Jin Xinyue were locked in the same prison cell. Different from the other chaotic-blood demons who were simmering, they both lowered their heads lethargically, trying their best to hide the brilliance shining in their eyes.
Their current appearance was vastly different from half a month ago.
Li Yao had changed the distribution and direction of his muscles, turning himself into a tough, muscular man. His left arm was now covered in a layer of vague scales. His forearms were sharp but had the features of lions and tigers, too. At first glance, he was just a random, simpleminded chaotic-blood demon.
Jin Xinyue had her own secret techniques for disguise. She was now dark and slender. Her eyes became two lines like those of a reptile, and her tongue was narrow and long like that of a snake, hissing every now and then. She was an out-and-out ugly snake right now.
However hard Li Yao observed, he did not find any discrepancies in her appearance. He could not help but feel amazed.
They did not have a choice to pretend to chaotic-blood demons.
Although Void Turmoil City was a chaotic, lawless place, the Fire Ant King was a top-tier expert of the Blood Demon Sector. The city seemingly was operated in the open but in a very strict way. It was not difficult for them to enter Void Turmoil City, but it was quite a different matter if they did not want to raise anybody’s attention.
The four kingdoms were apparently still searching for the two of them. Both of their identities had to be kept a secret right now, and disguises were mandatory.
Of the different types of demons, the black-blood demons and the bronze-blood demons were too different from normal human beings. No matter how Li Yao changed his body, he could not turn himself into a giant mantis crouching on the ground or change his legs into a tail.
The silver-blood demons and the chaotic-blood demons were the most similar to human beings in appearance, and it was easier for them to pretend.
However, the silver-blood demons were all nobles. Every silver-blood demon had a unique appearance, identity, and familial background. Their identity would immediately be exposed if somebody stopped and questioned them.
Jin Xinyue had prepared a lot of fake identities before, but she was not sure that those identities were still confidential right now.
After careful consideration, they could only pretend to be chaotic-blood demons to sneak into Void Turmoil City.
After fleeing from the Hundred Desolation Mountain while covering their tracks, they lay low during the day and moved northwards at night, marching toward Void Turmoil City.
The deeper they got to the north, the more they could feel the influence of the ‘Riot of Bloody Blade’ on the Blood Demon Sector.
The poor villages that they passed had almost all been demolished. The towns of chaotic-blood demons and black-blood demons were involved in the insurrection. They had either joined the ‘Riot of Bloody Blade’ with their entire town or were regarded as accomplices of the Blade of Chaos and executed later.
While they were travelling in the mountains, they ran into a lot of groups of chaotic-blood demons and black-blood demons who had mostly fled to the mountains to avoid the fire of war. Naturally, some of the remnants of the Blade of Chaos might have been hiding among them, but most of them were innocent civilians.
However, when the army of the four kingdoms and the slave-catching teams of Void Turmoil City came, they simply captured all the demons without distinguishing who they were at all. The victims either ended up being another accomplishment of the magnificent silver-blooded generals or would become cannon fodder in the war soon to come.
Under such circumstances, a lot of displaced low-level demons had been mixed together. Most of them were ignorant and faltering, unable to talk about their origins clearly. Some of them were even wild demons who had lived in the unhabituated forests. It was an utter mess. Identifying every low-level demon clearly was simply an impossible task.
Also, the slave-catching teams from Void Turmoil City were not interested in identifying the prey at all. After all, in their eyes, those demons were nothing but slaves and cannon fodder. Who would care what slaves and cannon fodder used to be?
Li Yao and Jin Xinyue tailed a slave-catching team for three days and three nights to make sure that it was from Void Turmoil City.
Then, everything was simple. They disguised themselves and snuck into a group of refugees that was right in the way of said slave-catching team. They were ‘captured’ by the slave-catching team smoothly as planned.
However, it was not as smooth as it should have been. As the trip continued, Li Yao found it harder and harder to keep his mind stable and to contain his fury. The mental devil had expanded significantly, too.
Wa! Wa! Wa! Wa!
In the upper prison cell of the same cabin, a baby of the chaotic-blood demons was crying loudly. The sound was piercing Li Yao’s eardrums brutally like iron needles.
The chaotic-blood demons were generally alike to human beings, and it was hardly possible to find the features of demons on the babies of the chaotic-blood demons at all. They looked exactly like plump human infants and would not reveal the features of demons until they were two or three.
During the long journey, Li Yao witnessed the demons who were almost identical to humans being bullied and tortured by the hideous black-blood demons and the bronze-blood demons. His outrage was inevitable.
If the Heaven’s Origin Sector is really swallowed by the Blood Demon Sector one day, this will be the outcome for all the citizens of the Star Glory Federation, won’t it?
The thought burned furiously inside Li Yao’s brain and formed what seemed to be a crimson lotus on which the mental devil was sitting in relaxation and observing everything coldly.
Huala!
Right then, the tentacles of the Land Whale in front of Li Yao suddenly crumbled. A cabin fell from its back and broke apart.
Countless black-blood demons immediately jumped out and dispersed in a hurry to run away.
Those black-blood demons all looked repulsive. They seemed to be enormous beetles, and they were emanating a stinky smell and earsplitting shrieks.
They apparently had a lot of strength. The iron gauze that carried feeble electric currents was torn into pieces after they struggled for a moment.
Li Yao observed the situation through the ventilation tubes in secret.
He heard that a few demons nearby were shouting that the dosage of narcotic drugs was not enough.
In a moment, dozens of brawny demons lunged close, carrying long rods that were almost three meters long and had tentacles that looked like electric eels. Electric arcs were spluttering as they drove the dispersing black-blood demons back to where they should have been.
A black-blood demon that looked like a mantis happened to be passing the Land Whale that Li Yao was on. He was tied up by a few electric whips and finally dragged back.
His blade limbs left eight deep ravines in the red desert, which looked like eight bloody wounds.
Maybe it was only his imagination, but Li Yao felt that he saw fury, sadness, pain, and desperation, everything that could be seen in a human, in the crimson eyes of the demon.
Pu… Pu…
The slave-catching team sprayed a huge amount of pink venomous gas at the black-blood demons. In the middle of the spreading venomous gas, the brightness inside the eyes of the black-blood demons gradually disappeared before they collapsed to the ground one by one and were stuffed into new cabins.
“Do the black-blood demons have to be refined, too?” Li Yao asked Jin Xinyue in a low voice.
“Of course they do,” Jin Xinyue replied. “The black-blood demons are deemed as ‘producers’ in the ‘Four Pillars’ system. Most of the black-blood demons only have the genes of the herbivores. They are not aggressive by nature.
“Even the hideous-looking insects mostly feed on plants and grass. They will not attack other creatures promptly without a cause. How can they form fearless beast tides to fight against human beings without being refined?”