Chapter 722: The Aura of Conspiracy

Although not as vivid as what Donald sensed through the River of Souls, Astymos, like most powerful true gods, used his divine vision to penetrate dimensions and observe the battles in the Abyss.
“The three giants of the Abyss are truly formidable—using only their own strength, they halted the advance of the Radiant Alliance at the ninth layer of the Abyss!”
Hearing the Hell King’s exclamation, Donald smiled and said, “Grant might think of this, but that madman Ostasius would never act so wisely. So I believe this outcome was accidental. After all, before determining a winner, the three Radiant Gods wouldn’t rashly order the alliance to advance further. Without their leadership, the Heavenly Alliance, weakened in the Abyss’s domain, would easily suffer heavy losses. If the alliance suffered too much, even without the gods pressuring them, dissent would arise among their own ranks of righteous true gods. No matter what plan Ivan has, he wouldn’t be able to carry it out!”
“Regardless of anything else, if those three giants united to attack Hell, I alone would surely not be able to resist!”
Astymos didn’t think as comprehensively or far ahead as Donald. He was more concerned about how his own ninth-layer Hell realm could protect itself in this battle and gain more benefits.
However, seeing the strength of the three Abyss giants, though Astymos was confident that he could reach a level comparable to theirs in the near future, he was still far from there—currently at a mid-tier god level, relying on the power of Hell. Not to mention his master Donald, who was also at a mid-tier god level; it likely wouldn’t take long for Donald to find ways to defeat him.
Astymos’s concerns weren’t unfounded, but only if Donald wasn’t involved in the planning.
“If the three Abyss giants were to attack Hell, it would suit my interests. It’s a shame that a cunning man like Grant wouldn’t make such a reckless move. Ostasius might, though. Although the power of destruction isn’t something I favor, I’m not averse to scheming against this Destroyer Lord. Even if I can’t bring him down, I can at least weaken his strength. I think both the gods of the Pantheon and other Abyss lords would be pleased to see that!”

For this clash between the gods and the abyss, Donald already had several plans in mind, and those currently in effect alone could bring him great benefits. With strength beyond his rank and a precise mind, Donald had repeatedly turned the odds in his favor, rising from a mortal to a mid-tier god and achieving exactly what he wanted each time. This time was no exception. On one hand, he used the power of the River of Darkness to observe the battles of the Abyss Lord, while on the other hand, taking advantage of the fact that the will of the Abyss was fully focused on repelling the invasion of the Light Alliance and thus unable to attend to both matters, he greatly increased the speed at which the River of Darkness flowed into the Abyss world. With the vast Abyss world itself serving as a springboard, portions of the River of Darkness surged out through portals formed by the dimensional passages, continuing to converge into rivers on the opposite layers and moving at incredible speed toward deeper levels. Thanks to the convenience of these dimensional passages, the main stream of the River of Darkness quickly broke through the barriers of the eleventh, twenty-seventh, and thirty-fifth layers without much resistance, extending further into deeper realms. As for those even deeper layers, it would take some time for the river network to spread throughout and take shape fully. When the water of the River of Darkness reached the thirty-fifth layer, Donald suddenly discovered something interesting and unexpected. Beyond the thirty-fifth layer, there was a demon lord wandering about. It was a powerful and unfamiliar demon lord whom Donald had never seen before—though that wasn’t strange. What was strange was that while almost all the lords in the lower and middle layers of the Abyss, as well as most of the well-known powerful demons in the deeper layers, had rushed to the front lines, this guy appeared here, which seemed highly suspicious. So Donald diverted some of his attention. Since the gaze of a true god might be detected by the observed being, he used the senses of the River of Darkness to sense the other party’s movements. This indirect method of observation was difficult for even higher gods to detect anomalies, unless they were highly sensitive to the realm of prophecy. The demon lord didn’t stay long outside the thirty-fifth layer before seeing a flash of light ahead—a young man radiating divine light appeared. The newcomer’s appearance was so handsome that he seemed like the most perfect messenger in the heavens, crafted by the God of Art. Yet the abnormalities in his hands revealed his true identity.

Asson, the fallen prince son of Grant the Fallen Monarch—who shared the same trait as his father, having six fingers on each hand—was a wicked individual who loved to pose as a holy paladin to deceive and tempt beings from the righteous faction into corruption. Hearing this, these two figures piqued Donald’s interest immensely. While his father was fighting against the celestial invaders on the front lines, this fallen prince secretly met with a strange demon lord on his own, which seemed highly suspicious. Donald had also heard rumors that the relationship between this fallen prince and his demon lord father was not very good, allegedly because the Fallen Monarch was no less lustful in his private life than the succubus queen Melissa; he liked any beautiful, distinctive humanoid being, regardless of gender. Under such circumstances, Asson, who was widely praised by powerful women across the multiverse as the most handsome man in the Abyss and one of the top ten most charming men in the multiverse selected personally by the god of love and dreams, Alois, would likely not spare even his own son. After meeting, the two engaged in secret talks through mental communication. Aside from some superficial pleasantries at first, Donald couldn’t hear what they were discussing. Yet he wasn’t entirely unproductive; at least he learned the name of that strange demon lord: Thanobos, a lord of undead demons. Undead demons were a race of half-demon, half-undead creatures created by the Undead King Oscar. Over thousands of years since their creation, their numbers had grown significantly. Due to the influence of the Abyssal Will within them, these undead demons, like other demonic beings, harbored rebellious and chaotic thoughts and were not as utterly loyal to Oscar their “father” as their fellow races created by the Undead King. Instead, aside from a small portion remaining under the Undead King’s control, most undead demons chose freedom and betrayal. Many demon lords mocked them as Oscar’s most failed creation. Donald had heard this name while gathering information about the Undead King. Thanobos was said to be one of the most powerful undead demons who betrayed their creator Oscar very early on. It was said that Oscar had invested a great deal of effort into him, endowing him with the immense power of a newly born god from the start. Undoubtedly, Thanobos’s betrayal must have dealt a significant blow to Oscar.

For some reason, Donald thought of the King of the Undead, who was hidden somewhere in the multiverse. Subconsciously, Donald believed that whatever schemes this powerful lord of the undead demons was plotting were related to him. The meeting between Tanobos and Yasas, those two mighty forces of the Abyss, didn’t last long; they soon ended their conversation and headed in different directions. Donald didn’t give up tracking them. By now, the power of the River of Darkness had spread across most of the lower layers of the Abyss, including the Triple Kingdoms of the Fallen Monarch Grant, and it was precisely there that these two powerful demons were going. The 45th, 46th, and 47th layers of the Abyss, three connected realms, were under the control of the Fallen Monarch Grant. The Fallen Monarch could be said to be the one among the three great powers of the Abyss who ruled the largest territory. All this was due to Grant’s wisdom beyond that of ordinary demons, as well as his rationality akin to that of a true deity in the heavens. For demons, what often leads to their failure or death isn’t a lack of strength or imperfect plans, but rather their impulsive, reckless, and mad nature. In this regard, Grant was more like a Hellish Devil of the Lawful Evil faction rather than a Chaotic Evil Abyssal Demon! In the chaotic era of the First War between Gods and Demons in ancient times, many powerful ancient demon lords, even those comparable to higher gods, perished or had their powers diminished and they were imprisoned. But two ancient demon kings remained above it all: the mysterious Deep Sea Overlord Dagón and the Mother of Demons, Eternity Night. The former had no interest in the struggles for power in the Abyss, while the latter possessed ambitions far greater than those of other demon lords. Perhaps foreseeing the end of the ancient demons’ dominance, this Mother of Demons chose to adopt a different approach to compete for control of the Bottomless Abyss. On the 600th layer of the Bottomless Abyss, a realm filled with endless labyrinths, Eternity Night established her bone fortress. It was these endless labyrinths that prevented the war between gods and demons from spreading here at the beginning. As the wisest among the ancient demon lords, the Mother of Demons knew full well that those who dared claim to be the supreme rulers of the Bottomless Abyss were all the most powerful demons, and her own strength was only slightly inferior to theirs. She understood clearly that such a battle would likely end without a true winner.

So she wisely chose not to join the war but to participate in it in a different way. After chaos, she summoned mysterious beings to give birth to many descendants, then had her children join the struggle. Once one of them became a demon prince favored by the will of the abyss, thenCang Ye would become the Mother of Demons. She acquired the greatest power in the abyss without fighting.