Howling winds carrying dust swept across the desolate surface, rustling clumps of charred, thorny plants rooted in the ground.
Dim sunlight pierced the overcast sky, illuminating the dark brown earth. The cracked ground was littered with little more than shriveled, charred flora, pools of stagnant water, barren dirt, pale gray boulders, and the bones of unknown beasts.
A massive subterranean rift spanned the space between two pale gray boulders, appearing like a jagged scar across the Barren Land.
Within the rift was a colorful and complex underground ecosystem packed with bizarre subterranean plants. Fungal Wood, Pigtail Grass, green ferns, Bubble Trees, Bloodthorns, and organ-pipe mushrooms were all intermingled. The abundant greenery of mosses and lichens climbed the edges of the rift, lush and vibrant, forming a sharp contrast with the desolation of the surrounding surface.
Several potato-like Rot Root Balls scurried around in the bushes. In their tiny, root-like claws, they grasped half-dried Bloodthorn branches to use as rakes, digging through leaves in search of broken twigs and decaying matter.
At the edge of the chasm, two heavily armored figures were struggling to climb.
"I never went rock climbing in my previous life... This sure makes up for that regret..." Samael pierced his bronze Hand Armor deeply into the rock wall, dragging his heavy body upward with great difficulty.
This was the ultimate inconvenience of wearing armor—it was heavy, restricted joint movement and limb flexibility, and inevitably made one’s actions rather clumsy.
"Almost there..." Talia carried a Hammer Spear on her back. Her charred Hand Armor gripped the edge as she pushed off fiercely, flipping over to lie flat on the ground at the rift’s edge. The Armor on her body let out a loud CLANG and CLATTER.
"Godfather... Godfather, give me a hand..." A bronze armored hand reached over the edge of the rift.
"Why are you calling me Godfather! Just call me Talia!" Talia panted. She grabbed the armored hand and gave it a hard yank, dragging Samael back onto the surface with a loud CLANG.
"Whoa... Why is the surface environment so harsh?" Samael propped himself up on the ground, raising his helmet to look around. "The underground ecosystem was so thriving."
"This... this is the Barren Land. It’s also known as the Demon Realm." Talia sat on the ground panting. She took off her Demon Horn Helmet and tossed it aside, revealing a delicate face and steel-gray hair tied into a short ponytail.
"The Demon Realm is a landscape formed when massive amounts of Spiritual Energy seep into the soil and enter the ecosystem. Spiritual Energy affects and alters the physical forms of living creatures. It circulates through the ecosystem via the food chain, accumulating within the bodies of apex predators.
"Three-quarters of the Yadon Continent consists of this desolate and harsh Demon Realm. This includes corrupted wastelands with peculiar soil unsuitable for farming or grazing, the arid and waterless Magic Erosion Desert, swamps filled with highly toxic miasma and quagmires, the Sea of Evil littered with hidden reefs and turbulent waves, the Nightmare Forest sealed off by wildly overgrown Demonized Plants, and so on.
"Only about a quarter of the continent has thin Spiritual Energy, making it suitable for humans, Elves, and Dwarves to live in. However, the Yadon Continent is massive; just a quarter of it is more than enough for them. Human kingdoms, Elf city-states, and Dwarf fortresses are all located in that one-quarter of habitable land where Spiritual Energy is scarce."
"Also, you mentioned earlier that the underground ecosystem was thriving, but that is actually only true for the Demon Race and Demonized Creatures." Talia gazed at the chasm beside them; it was the very place they had just climbed out of from the subterranean ruins.
"Humans refer to Spiritual Energy as ’Demonic Matter’ because their natural adaptability to it is generally quite low. To utilize Spiritual Energy, they must rely on extensive bodily modifications using the products of Magic Potion Science. Unmodified humans struggle to survive in areas rich in Spiritual Energy.
"However, the Demon Race possesses extremely high natural adaptability to Spiritual Energy. The Spiritual Energy in this ecosystem is almost entirely beneficial to us. Not only can the Demon Race live normally in the Demon Realm, but to us, this land is actually a bountiful paradise of Gold.
"The Demon Race is immune to the vast majority of miasmas, toxins, and curses in the Barren Land. We are deeply familiar with the ecosystem and won’t be attacked by Demonized Creatures. This is because the Demon Race is part of the Demon Realm’s ecological system; we are the Monarchs of the Underground City. The reason we didn’t encounter a single enemy on our way up is that the Demonized Creatures all view us as the apex predators of the Demon Realm. Upon seeing us from afar, they cower and avoid us, either hiding where they are or fleeing outright.
"But for races that don’t belong to the subterranean ecosystem... if adventurers dare to set foot in the underground world, they would likely encounter lethal danger within a few mere steps. Some subterranean plants are perfectly safe for the Demon Race to touch or even eat, but for ordinary humans, the slightest contact could result in poisoning, severe allergies, parasitism, or being cursed by Spiritual Energy." She chuckled softly, raising a hand to control a Rot Root Ball not far away.
The Rot Root Ball swayed in place twice before breaking into a trot. It hauled a cluster of pale purple pods from the edge of the chasm and handed it to Talia.
"Take this sweet pod, for example. It contains Spiritual Poison. If an ordinary human ate it raw without processing it, they would die from poisoning within three minutes. Their body would swell up, their blood turning purple before they eventually exploded, becoming fertilizer for the pod bushes—Demonized Plants love to take root and grow in corpses. Humans sometimes harvest them to brew Magic Potions." She plucked a sweet bean and casually tossed it into her mouth. "But for the Demon Race, it’s just a sweet, crunchy snack. We can replenish our Spiritual Energy by eating Demonized Creatures, and enhance our own Spiritual Energy talents by hunting and preying on powerful Demonized Creatures."