After this battle, Solam had gone from rags to riches overnight.
A full fifty-six high-quality soul crystals, three hundred medium-quality soul crystals, and more than three thousand low-quality soul crystals. (Since they were used as currency, they had to be easy to carry, so the fiends of the Lower Planes invented a technique to compress souls into crystals.)
This was the entire fortune of those Merrenoloths.
Do not think it was a small amount. In fact, it was an enormous fortune. Low-quality souls were not rare in the Lower Planes. Every year, hundreds of millions of souls were drawn into the Abyss, and the vast majority were low-quality souls. Yet most of them were absorbed by the blood pools and turned into demon larvae.
The number of low-quality souls that actually reached demons was not particularly large, and higher-quality souls were even rarer. Even Solam himself had not expected to seize so much loot in one go. He truly had not expected those Merrenoloths, who looked born poor, to each be so wealthy.
What pleased Solam even more was that the Styx ferries he had seized were also extremely valuable. As mentioned before, Styx ferries were exclusive magical items that only yugoloths could manufacture. Their cost-effectiveness was very high, but that did not mean they were cheap.
Cost-effectiveness depended on what you compared them with. Compared to Ships of Chaos and Baator warships, these two great weapons were among the most advanced creations of demons and devils, consuming astronomical amounts of resources and souls. Next to them, Styx ferries were naturally insignificant.
But considered on their own, Styx ferries were still terrifyingly expensive to build. Without at least four or five thousand medium-quality souls, one could forget about acquiring one. Thirty-nine Merrenoloths had gathered here, and Solam had killed all