Redenia silently watched the scene before her.
It felt as though all of this had happened before. The Colorado Plateau in the height of summer should have been a gruesome crimson, yet now both banks of the river valley were packed with black wings and green demonic fire. There were a thousand, five thousand, perhaps even tens of thousands of Outer Domain Demons sprawled across the red stony shore.
Short, lowly demons crawled out of the polluted earth and briskly carried supplies. Bone Demons, their entire bodies protected by bony armor, constructed bone altars under the direction of several blasphemous priests. Prisoners and lambs were shoved forward, and amid evil muttering and maddening chants, their flesh melted into a pool of filthy blood slurry like boiling chocolate. Then came the wailing cries of infants, as vast numbers of demon worms surged and crawled out of the blood pool.
Even the dullest person could see the purpose behind these Outer Domain Demons' actions. Polluting this land with Outworld Wind was not enough for them. They wanted to reshuffle everything in the human world, transform living people into raw materials for their own kind, expand their army, and conquer their land—just as they had once done to the native inhabitants of this continent.
Demons always carried themselves elegantly. Every movement exuded an air of high society, and every demon officer dressed more extravagantly and respectably than the gentleman nobles of the British Empire. If those self-proclaimed consciences of the nation from inferior civilizations saw demons carving up living people, they would surely be moved to tears and denounce their compatriots for refusing to embrace civilization.
But Redenia was not concerned with any of that.
Her target lay beyond the distant horizon.
—A plume of dust was gradually rising on the far horizon.