Submitting an Application for Special-Grade Funding and Obtaining the Temporal Sequence Stele

The two high-ranking demons realized what was happening. To them, it looked as though a Beholder Lord or Beholder Elder was charging at them. Beholders had always been among the weaker demon races of the Abyss at the same level.

Neither high-ranking demon was afraid.

The high-ranking Torture Demon even welcomed the challenge. He raised the great blade in his right hand and slashed at Locke. The Torture Demon race excelled in physical strength, and as a Second-Ring creature, this one's body had reached an almost inconceivable level.

Locke recalled an article he had once read in passing. The difference between Abyss Demonfolk and Hell Demonfolk, it said, was that Hell Demonfolk were like products made from a template: whatever the devils ruling Hell designed, Hell's demons produced.

The Abyss was different. It was chaotic and lawless, and there was no telling what powers it might produce. Torture Demons were a race skilled in close combat. Their bodies were so dense that both their attacks and defenses gained an advantage from it. Their Magic Pressure arose from that density as well.

The other combatant, a demon from Baator Hell, had soul fire burning atop his ram horns. Parchment contracts appeared across his body, one after another, records of all the things he had done across the planes of the Infinite Void.

The burning souls supplied him with seemingly boundless power.

He held a mechanical greatsword, its gears in the hilt spinning furiously as though the soul flames were driving them.

He swung the soul sword at Locke.

Both demons had Magic Pressure just over ten thousand, around ten thousand one hundred apiece.

They were evenly matched.

Now they attacked Locke together. As the high-ranking Torture Demon and the high-ranking devil brought their greatswords down, a Golden Tree appeared behind Locke.