Several days later.
The night hung low, but this hellish world did not fall into darkness with it. After the distant, dim reddish-brown star had completely sunk below the horizon, a layer of dark red radiance spread across the Obsidian Plain. This faint glow came from the enormous red planet overhead. Its vast surface was rich in iron-red soil, and slowly decaying radioactive materials caused it to emit a constant glow—bright enough to illuminate the entire land after nightfall.
Every Demon Realm had strange sights that were hard to forget. The Third Plane had the Helm Smoke Column, while the Seventh Plane had its red giant. Because of tidal locking, the shattered planet once ruled by Izax had maintained a relative orbit with the red giant in the sky for millions upon millions of years, forming a strange binary-star system in this space. Whenever night fell, the Obsidian Plain lay beneath the red giant's radiance. Looking up, one could see the enormous circular landmass hanging overhead, so close that the wood-grain-like patterns of the red planet's surface were visible to the naked eye.
Several dark figures raced across the Obsidian Plain, moving like gusts of wind and swooping birds. They skirted the military camps and sentry posts along the way, continually closing in on the "urban district" where the headquarters of the Holy See Allied Forces was located.
Lanina looked up at the familiar sky of her homeland. "Many outsiders find it difficult to survive in this space. The relatively high daytime temperatures and the toxic substances in the air are only part of the reason. Another reason is the red planet's influence. Red seems to be an intensely stimulating color for emotionally sensitive creatures like humans and elves. Being surrounded by a red environment for too long causes them