Published: March 2, 2025
“Spare us... We are just being forced...”
The leader, an ancient demon at tier 3 peak, knelt down and pleaded with the soldier, who merely shook his head gently, appearing both regretful and sorrowful.
After a moment of silence, he extended his hand towards the demonic refugees.
“Get up first. I didn’t come here to kill you.”
“I’m here to help you.”
Fluent demon realm language flowed from the soldier's mouth. Upon hearing this, the ten demonic creatures all froze, and after a moment, hope sparked in their eyes.
For these demonic civilians, who had been forced to flee through the Demon Realm Gate, even the friendly words of an enemy were enough to awaken the last remnants of hope in their hearts.
“Sir, you...”
One of the demonic creatures spoke in disbelief.
Then he received a reply.
“My name is Marquez, and that’s all you need to know.”
Among the ten demonic creatures were old ones, children, and three capable adult ancient demons.
To say they were capable of fighting—only in the tier 3 area...
As members of the demonic clan, they could only reside in tier 3, whereas humans and mutated beasts were different. Every sector of the layered battlefield belonged to native earth creatures. In other words, these demonic beings could encounter tier 7 or even tier 8 professionals and mutated beasts here.
Just as the soul puppets released by the spirit of the demon lord were a disaster for the residents of tier 3, the soldiers dispatched by Fran and the hunting squads were, to these low-tier demons, no different from a catastrophic calamity; if they crossed paths, death was certain!
Humans and demons cannot coexist!
This was a consensus.
But today, this consensus was disrupted by someone...
“My name is Marquez, commander of the 562nd army corps in Beijing.”
At this point, Marquez paused briefly before continuing.
“Who I am isn’t important. What matters is that I’m here to help you. Just knowing that is enough.”
The commander of the 562nd army corps appeared to hold a high position, yet in reality, he wasn’t that significant of an official— the one who had died on the front lines of tier 3 was the commander of the 333rd army corps. Fran hadn’t shown much concern for the death of the 333rd army corps commander, which indicated that this commander’s status wasn’t particularly valuable...
And indeed, that was the case.
Thinking about his own identity, Marquez fell into a brief contemplation.
He didn’t quite understand what had gone wrong!
He remembered when he first joined Beijing, he and Lei were among the top generals! With exceptional strength, they had even been selected by Lin Haifeng at one point to balance Wen Yu as a trump card.
However, everything changed fundamentally thereafter.
Lin Haifeng inexplicably lost interest in Lei and Marquez, and the two were increasingly marginalized. Now, Lei and Marquez could only lead a corps that hardly counted as a main force, doing trivial tasks.
The former demon lord's orders regarding the protection of Tang Haofei and Lin Haifeng had also completely turned into a delusion.
Lin Haifeng didn’t trust them, and Tang Haofei didn’t need their protection. In short, their tasks had been completed in utter disarray. The worse part was that after they transformed into humans, they completely lost contact with the demon lord and even the Demon Palace. Now, Marquez felt like a wandering ghost in the world, empty, lonely, unable to find a purpose in life, let alone a way home...
Until he heard the news circulating within the army.
“The demonic clan is launching a massive invasion! They are not warriors, just some pitiful civilians...”
Though they were described as pitiful, there was no sympathy within the army. To ordinary people, a demonic clan was just a demonic clan; it didn’t differentiate between soldiers and civilians, and naturally, there would be no mercy shown!
But this did not apply to Marquez.
He felt he had found a reason to live...
He wanted to save his people... even if just a tiny fraction of them.