The earth trembled.
The volcano Soran had detonated erupted in something close to a Plinian eruption, one of the most powerful forms of volcanic eruption. It could blast ash more than forty-five kilometers into the air, blanketing vast areas. Eruptions of this kind could produce powerful pyroclastic flows, and were characterized by volcanic gases and ash shooting into the stratosphere. A brief eruption could end within a day, but one could also last for days or even months. Longer eruptions began with the formation of ash clouds, sometimes accompanied by pyroclastic flows. They could expel enough magma to collapse the volcanic vent and form a caldera, while fine ash could cover an enormous area.
Because of the plane's peculiar nature, Soran could not turn this place into a supervolcano even by sacrificing a Fire Demon.
Yet this violent eruption had undoubtedly changed some of the plane's properties entirely. Under the guidance of Soran's immense power and the intervention of the elves from the Land of Fire, the [negative energy property] bestowed by Orcus gradually took on a trace of the Elemental Plane of Fire's properties.
As mentioned earlier, every plane had passages connecting it to the Elemental Planes.
Thanatos had been infused with properties from the Negative Energy Plane, allowing low-tier undead to revive automatically within it. When souls entered this layer, the cold environment and negative energy often prevented them from becoming demonic worms. Instead, they became various undead directly, such as skeletons, zombies, and bodaks.
This was not what Soran needed.
He did not need undead, much less undead that could revive endlessly and grow stronger through slaughter.
A tributary of the River Styx flowed through this layer. Under the influence of Orcus's power, more than ninety percent of all souls in this plane became undead. Only the