The Magic Empire for 20,000 years

Chapter 261 The New Frontier of the Empire
Everything went quite smoothly from then on.

Under the overwhelming force of the Eldoron expeditionary force, most of the demons in the Iron Lake region chose to surrender and offered no resistance whatsoever when faced with the return of the former Balrog Lord, Ratu.

In any case, a significant portion of the demons here are former subordinates of Ratul, the Balrog Lord. They have only submitted to the new lord for less than half a year, and are now simply welcoming back their old master.

The few demons who chose to resist stubbornly were basically torn to pieces by the other demons who chose to surrender, as a pledge of allegiance.

Some powerful demon resisters—primarily the trusted henchmen of the new lord, the Demon Princess, and the Lady of Change, Artina Shi—are attempting to organize for a final stand.

The fate of these rebels was predictable—

They would either be dealt with by Elion and the other two human legends, or crushed into a bloody mass by the terrifying claws of the bone dragon.

Of course, many more surrendered immediately after recognizing the situation, thus saving their lives.

After witnessing Elion effortlessly annihilate a near-legendary succubus, even the powerful demons belonging to the new lord, Artina Shi, were filled with fear and chose to pledge allegiance to "Flame Lord Latu" and the "Magic Empire Eldoron" behind him.

Loyalty does not exist in the devil's dictionary!

In four or five hours, the Eldoran Expeditionary Force completely took over the entire Iron Lake region, as well as several surrounding jagged rocks, and subdued more than 10,000 demons.

Including the demons they had subdued along the way, a demon army of 20,000 demons is now under the control of Eldoron.

Among the high-ranking demons who surrendered, Elion specifically selected a group of powerful, prestigious, and high-risk demons to whom he applied the [Otherworldly Oath] to ensure they would not betray him through the force of the magical contract.

As for the remaining demons, they were guarded by demons such as Ratu the Fire Demon, who were already controlled by magical contracts.

In the Eldoron Abyss Colony, implementing a "demon-manages-demon" strategy is the most efficient!
"There are only a few high-quality gems left that can be used as materials for the [Otherworldly Bond] spell."

"Even if you include the entire expeditionary force, there probably aren't many left."

"We must collect some more as soon as possible."

Elion touched the nearly depleted gem inventory in his [Dimensional Bag] and sighed.

Anyway, the abyss is rich in minerals, and as long as you are willing to mine, you will definitely be able to collect another batch of gems.

The spellcasting material required for 【Otherworldly Bond】 is a "magical gem infused with the magic power of another dimension".

This is a bottomless abyss, and there will be plenty of gems that meet the requirements!

……

Large numbers of zombies, skeletons, and forced laborers of the Primal Demons and Cowardly Demons erected fences around every large and small Iron Lake.

On each fence, there was a simple sign:

"high temperature!"

"Approach with caution to avoid burns!"

One by one, powerful demons groveled before the humans, then turned and berated the weaker demon laborers to continue their work.

Among the large and small molten iron lakes, in the scattered open spaces.

The few human professionals who held absolute dominance over this land were abuzz with discussion:
"I have to say, it's incredibly hot near the Molten Iron Lake. Luckily, I cast a buff on [Tolerance for Elemental Damage] before entering the abyss, or I might have already suffered from heatstroke."

"Is it hot? I don't think it's hot at all, I can't feel it at all."

"Of course you, a golden dragon sorcerer, don't feel hot!"

"By the way, let the few steel golems that were slightly damaged soak in the molten iron lake to repair their injuries."

"Also, have the Steel Golem collect a little water from the molten iron lake. Research Team 4 needs to analyze the composition of these molten metals. We want to figure out why these molten iron lakes can maintain such a high temperature."

"Hey, you berserker over there, come here. Our Team 6 needs a coward for live experiments. Go and catch one." "..."

The humans watched the hardworking demon laborers and undead, chatting and laughing as they shared their observations of the day.

His expression revealed undisguised excitement.

They were the pioneers of the empire's frontiers!
……

Beside the largest lake of molten iron stands a magnificent steel fortress.

"This fortress, forged from abyssal steel, was built by the ancient Obiris Demon Lord, and the materials came from the water of this largest molten iron lake."

"The fortress is extremely sturdy. Even if it were bombarded by a nine-ring [Meteor Explosion], it would only suffer minor scratches. It has survived thousands of years of abyssal warfare to this day."

"This is detailed information and a map of every molten iron lake in the entire area."

"This is a rough map of the first level of the Bottomless Abyss, the [Plains of Ten Thousand Abysses]..."

Hadris, the six-armed serpent demon and a former subordinate of Balor Ratul, explained the situation to Elian and the other humans with great enthusiasm, his expression obsequious and respectful.

In those brief few hours, the six-armed serpent demon had clearly realized just how terrifying the fighting power of this legion, which claimed to be from the "Magic Empire Eldoron," was!

Especially that legendary human mage who is said to be the emperor of the empire, whose strength is unfathomable.

Although this legendary human mage clearly did not display his full strength, the magical prowess he casually revealed was enough to make Hadris suspect that his strength surpassed that of most demon lords!
El-Erian looked at the map, took a pen and sketched on it, roughly outlining the subsequent construction plan:
"The Molten Iron Lake area has the natural advantage of high temperature and molten iron, making it easy to defend and difficult to attack. It can serve as a base for our subsequent military expansion."

"This series of molten iron lakes has considerable development value. Several large forging plants and enchanting workshops can be built around these lakes to forge weapons and equipment directly using the lake water."

“At this location, we will build another arcane energy tower to draw on the ley line magic of the abyss to power the industrial facilities and at the same time form a magical protective barrier.”

"We want to transform this area into the command center for exploring the Abyss and the logistics hub!"

After briefly outlining the subsequent development plan, El-Erian also realized:
The extent to which these abyssal demons are utilizing the Iron Lake, this natural furnace, is currently appallingly low.

This is not surprising.

The vast majority of demons rely on their natural claws and fangs for combat and do not use weapons.

Even for a few demons like Balrog who are skilled in using weapons, an abyssal weapon is automatically generated when they advance to their current form, without the need for additional weapon forging.

Therefore, among the demons of the bottomless abyss, the demand for forging weapons and armor is extremely low; it is mostly something that demons who have accidentally lost their companion weapons would consider.

Similarly, in a chaotic and disordered abyss, it is unlikely that various forging techniques will be passed down.

In the more distant future, as civilizations in various worlds of the material plane became more advanced, explorers, mages, scholars, cultists, and interdimensional merchants visited the Abyss, bringing with them advanced forging techniques. Only then was the value of these natural furnaces gradually discovered.

In Elion's previous life, when he went to the Abyss as a legendary mage, there was even a small town in this Iron Lake region made up of "Lava Bat" blacksmiths.

—It is said that these creatures of the fire elemental plane were laborers captured from the elemental plane by some abyss lord or other powerful being to serve a large-scale forging project, but for some reason they lost control of them.

"Many fire-based magical creatures, such as fire dwarves (Azer) and fire giants among giants, are natural-born blacksmiths."

"Unfortunately, Eldoron currently has no control over the elemental planes, so it is unlikely that it can produce a large number of fire elemental creature laborers."

"However, it's still possible to summon a small number of fire elemental creatures using summoning spells and control them with [Otherworldly Bond]..."

Elian's thoughts wandered.

At this moment, the six-armed serpent demon Hadris spread out a map and addressed Elrian and the other high-ranking officials of Eldoron:

"Let me explain to you gentlemen the current power structure of Pazunia in the [Abyss Plains]..."

(End of this chapter)