The Green Plains in the southern part of the kingdom possessed the most fertile land and abundant water sources in the entire country. Cities and villages of all sizes were scattered across this vast land, forming a densely populated economic belt known as the "kingdom's treasury." Yet even in such a prosperous region, desolate uninhabited areas still existed. What was more, this long strip of wasteland even ran from north to south, stretching from the northern wilderness all the way to the southern hills.
The plains' residents called this broad, barren land the "Devil's Corridor." According to local legend, the founding king of Tarus had once led his knights in a fierce battle against Chaos on the Green Plains. It was the final year of the Chaos Tide. The last Chaos army entrenched on the continent had made a desperate stand in the wilderness, fighting the human army in a bloody battle for seventeen days and nights. In the end, the valiant founding king led his warriors to drive back Chaos and annihilate it all along this defensive line. The ashes of the Chaos monsters and the blood of humanity mixed together and seeped into the earth, permanently poisoning the land. Thus, a black, corrosive scar had been left on the fertile and bountiful Green Plains—the Devil's Corridor of today.
Plants struggled to grow on this land, the soil had hardened into clumps, and undead and Shadow Monsters wandered day and night. Even the climate had become bizarrely abnormal. Although it was not as deadly as the Chaos Lands, the people living on the plains still kept their distance. Aside from sorcerers who studied shadow magic and adventurers who made their fortunes hunting monsters, no one was willing to travel through the Devil's Corridor. Yet Hao Ren had chosen to