Arrival!

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Countless parties and countless powerful demons began arriving at the entrance to the Flame Layer. Any tribe with a measure of strength was making its way there.

They came by different routes, in groups of every size. Paths to the Flame Layer were few and well hidden, but over the countless years, every reasonably powerful tribe had found two or three of them.

Yet no matter how many paths there were, or how broad the choices, losses along the way were unavoidable. The routes often lay among forbidding mountains, underground ravines, or the swamps of the Abyss. Their locations were bizarre!

And such places were often home to all manner of strange beasts.

The passage Er Dongsheng and the others had taken, for instance, had been especially peculiar!

Countless demons thronged the area, a sea of bobbing heads. Some gathered in little groups; others claimed whole stretches of ground alone, with scarcely a demon daring to approach.

Where there were demons, there was fighting. That was a truth as old as time, and the sounds of brawls rang out everywhere.

But more common still were...

Every so often, a pair of fiery beasts would burst from the endless sea of flames and lunge at the demons on shore, claws bared and teeth gnashing. Each attack sent them scrambling!

Most of the demons stayed near the shoreline, bending down now and then to dig at something.

What were they looking for?

A Wind Spirit began spinning furiously on the shore, drilling into the hot earth like a gimlet. Soil flew in every direction. Now