Chapter 208 The Devil Warlord
Since then, the First Hell has been ruled by Grand Duke Zariel, who replaced the Hell Demon Bayer as the Lord of Avernos. This change has led to a major shift in the devil's tactics.
Zariel's hot temper and reckless maneuvering methods are in sharp contrast to Bayer's approach. Under her command, the devils fought with violent fury. According to Luft's memory, in the past hundreds of years, the devils have never been as violent as they are now.
But unexpectedly, this way of fighting has achieved quite good results. The frequency of bloody battles in the past hundred years has been much lower than before, thanks to Zariel's efficient means of exterminating demons.
After falling into the devil, Zariel has been determined to destroy the devil. In order to achieve this goal, she also retained the legion system planned by Grand Duke Bayer when he ruled Avernus, because this model can make the command more effectively conveyed. Now the First Prison still retains a full 150 formal elite legions, as well as about 50 newly expanded cannon fodder legions, but the specific size and number are not fixed.
Zariel was originally an angel. This unique personal reason and her own hot temper made her suffer political isolation from other lords of the Nine Hells.
Of course, even so, the lords of other hells will still send devils to join the bloody battle, because this is the mission of the devils, but also because of Zariel's origin, there are far more devils than normal lords secretly plotting to overthrow her.
Zariel noticed this malice, so she chose to improve the combat effectiveness of her army by actively recruiting mortal souls. The city under Noshir can prove this, and the change and expansion of the cannon fodder legion is her strategy to deal with this hostility.
The cannon fodder legion has actually always existed in Avernus. There is no fixed number of people, officers and titles in the legion, or the unified title of these legions is cannon fodder, and their role is as conspicuous as their name.
The devils who were originally in the cannon fodder legion are often new devils born from the Styx of Avernus. Their combat effectiveness is far less stable than those truly elite devils. Therefore, only by joining the cannon fodder legion and surviving the war until the end of the war, and collecting enough military merits in the process, can they join other formal legions and thus leave the cannon fodder queue.
Of course, this is the previous cannon fodder legion. The current cannon fodder legion is also stuffed with devil legions from other nine layers of hell to support. Zariel always throws them into the most dangerous battles without hesitation, which makes their death rate soar in a straight line. Luft is always glad that he was born 300 years earlier than these unlucky guys. Of course, his current result is not much better than those unlucky guys.
However, Zariel did not leave them a way out. After she disbanded the devil corps that came to support them and mixed them into the cannon fodder corps, if there was a devil that could show his value in battle and Zariel or her confidants could notice this value, she would directly promote him, even without military merit.
Racial leap and power promotion, such a rapid class change can be called a rapid promotion. Zariel did not seem to worry that there were spies from other grand dukes among the devils she promoted, nor did she worry whether these devils would betray her, but Noshier knew why.
Zariel was optimistic about her, and the devils she promoted would sign a soul contract before promotion, although this was unlikely to eradicate betrayal. After all, no one stipulated that the soul could only be sold to one buyer. If the soul of the devil had already belonged to someone before, and the efficiency and effectiveness of the contract were stronger than the one signed with Zariel, then Zariel would have no way to force betrayal due to the restrictions of the contract.
However, this small insurance is not the fundamental reason for Zariel. The real reason why Zariel is confident in leading them is her cruel management of the devil army.
Strict and brutal, this is Zariel's motto. In the process of ruling hell, she consciously instilled fear into her army. For those who tried to betray, the revenge must be faster and more violent than expected.
In fact, there are already very good demons in this regard. Some of those betrayers were burned to ashes in an instant, and some were skinned alive, but these are not the worst.
Although these unfortunate guys experienced pain, their pain was not long-lasting. The one who was burned to ashes was the most merciful, and it only hurt for a few seconds. The one who was skinned was hung on the city gate with a hook, crying and wailing for several months, and then ushered in eternal sleep, but the worst guy is still hanging alive on Zariel's flying fortress.
The poor guy was transformed into a vampire by Zariel. After he lost his physical vitals, he was greeted with eternal punishment.
He was sentenced to be hung forever on the spiked outfit at the top of the flying fortress [Iron Blade], and a group of special mosquito bats maintained his vital signs by injecting blood into his body, so that he would be punished here forever. According to Luft's memory, the guy had been hung there for more than 100 years, and his screams had also lasted for 100 years.
'Tsk, devil. '
Noshier took another sip of wine and shook his head silently. These guys were still as brutal as he knew in the game, but in another way, these memories made him understand hell more clearly, in various ways.
Shaking his head, Noshier stopped thinking about the brutality of the devil, and sank into Luft's memory again. Soon, he found another interesting situation.
It was a new individual that had recently appeared in Avernus, an independent gathering point that had separated from the devil's promotion system and gathered on the barren plain. Other devils called it the existence of the devil warlord.
To be honest, Noshier was shocked when he knew this. After all, in his memory, the order in hell was so strict. He didn't expect that there were devils who could bypass the system of hell and achieve a certain degree of freedom. But recalling the series of changes that had taken place in hell after Zariel came to power, Noshier understood.
After all, even a powerful devil like Zariel cannot firmly control the souls of every devil in hell. The souls that can appear in hell are sinners who have committed crimes. Looking at the entire main material plane, there are countless such sinners.
They were not tempted by the devil during their lifetime, and did not sell their souls. After death, according to the judgment of the gods, they spontaneously fell into the nine layers of hell and reincarnated as the lowest level of inferior demons, and then served in the legions of hell and began their atonement in this life.
But Zariel was too keen on the bloody battle in the abyss. Her desire for war made her relax her control over the entire Avernus in disguise. In the past, as during the reign of Bayer, the system that ran like a strict gear now has loopholes, and the biggest loophole is the cannon fodder legion.
Many demons that were originally cannon fodder accumulated enough strength in the bloody battles, and were not discovered by Zariel in time, and then escaped from the battlefield by various means in a certain battle. When the number of such demons gathered enough, and there was a strong enough demon among them to control other demons, they might occupy a place in the vast plains of Avernus and become a relatively independent demon warlord.
However, according to Luft's memory, the biggest reason for their existence was that Zariel was busy with the bloody battles and had no time to clean up these dirty bugs. At the same time, there seemed to be a very fierce competition among these demon warlords.
After all, Avernus was short of resources, but demons also had physiological needs. As orderly creatures, in addition to participating in bloody battles, their daily activities were also full of various decadent entertainment behaviors.
But it was difficult for them to get enough toys outside the fortress, so plundering each other became their only choice, and Zariel was happy to see it happen. If they could destroy each other, she wouldn't have to bother with the life and death of these garbage.
‘Is this the current situation of the entire Avernus? It is unexpectedly interesting, and through these memories, I have some ideas on how to break the current situation.’