On paper, demons were far stronger than devils. The difference in numbers was simply too great. Even in the Blood War's current sorry state, tens of millions of demons were still fighting on the Plain of Infinite Portals. And the devils? They had fewer than ten million, and that figure even included the garrisons stationed in fortresses. Their truly mobile forces numbered only a few million.
Looking at it that way, the demons could have buried the devils beneath sheer numbers alone! But because the Abyss had been leaderless for so many years, with demon lords constantly squabbling and sabotaging one another, they dragged each other down far too severely. As a result, the devils had seized every opportunity and beaten the demons senseless.
For the same reason, the devils paid extremely close attention to the situation in the Abyss. For devils, who were evil to the extreme but also obsessed with order, entering the Abyss was practically suicide. Yet to obtain useful intelligence, they had no choice but to spend enormous sums every year gathering information on the Abyss through various neutral fiends.
Demogorgon's return some time ago had made the devils genuinely nervous. Bel, the current commander of Avernus and general of the Blood War, had even begun discussing with the Eight Dark Generals about dispatching agents to personally intervene and return the Abyss to its leaderless state.
But before they could act, the five great powers of the Abyss emerged one after another and divided themselves into five major factions, beginning to slaughter one another. Seeing this, the previously anxious devils breathed a sigh of relief, because this was exactly the situation they wanted.
The devil hierarchy had always shared one consensus: Baator could never contend with the entire Abyss! There was no other reason—the demons were