While some insignificant minotaur mercenary quietly defected on the Blood War battlefield, and the devils of Barto Hell began pressing down upon the Plain of Infinite Layers with a massive army, the Demon Lords of the Bottomless Abyss remained excessively calm.
The reason was simple. Compared to Barto Hell, which sixty years ago had already unified its will for the expedition with the tacit approval of the Lord of the Nine Hells and under the Silver Dragon Duke's consolidation—
Ever since the failure of the Chaos Expedition and the great Tanar'ri Demon rebellion, the Bottomless Abyss had never again produced an arbiter like the Queen of Chaos, someone capable of settling matters with a single word.
As a result, when faced with a conflict certain to involve every sort of shift in interests and power, the Abyssal Demon Lords could not reach a consensus in the short term. No—rather, they would never be able to reach one.
Especially when their territories had all endured the rat tide's assault for over a month.
Though the rat tide posed no fatal threat to Demon Lords comparable to lesser deities, if they left—
Then that endless tide of rats would become an enormous headache for their territories and the low- and mid-ranking demons within them.
In such circumstances, who would be willing to watch their own territory and interests suffer losses for the so-called "safety of the entire Bottomless Abyss"?
To every Demon Lord, their own interests stood above all else.
Once they lost their territory, they were... nothing!
Aldinach's past experience illustrated this perfectly.
Of course, countless Demon Lords had tried to become such an existence, but among them, there were three with the greatest potential and the closest brush with success:
Demon Prince Demogorgon, Undead King Orcus, and the Dark Prince