Chapter 376 - Lair (1/2)

The search for a territory was not too smooth.

Roy spent most of his time constantly going in and out of spatial entrances. He checked more than hundreds of fragment worlds, but he could not find a fragment world that satisfied him.

Perhaps someone might say that he could just find one randomly. Why did he have to be so obsessive?

But in fact, Roy knew that it was completely different from when he randomly chose places to be his lairs in the upper levels of the Abyss. If nothing unexpected happened, the territory he found would be his genuine ‘home’ for a long time. This period of time would most likely last hundreds of years. Given this, he certainly wanted to find the most suitable place.

So even though he was impatient, he still continued to search patiently.

As time passed, Roy was surprised to discover that the number of fragment worlds here was astonishing. He had entered and exited hundreds of spaces, but the repetition rate was only about 2% at most. The rest were all new spaces, each different in size, terrain, and environment. It was hard to imagine how vast it would be if all the fragment worlds here combined.

While searching, Roy had also intruded into territories with masters. The demon lords in these territories were all very wary of him, and the more irritable ones would even fight him directly. In such situations, he would usually exchange a few blows with them before retreating, unwilling to continue fighting.

It was not that he could not win, but there was no need. Not only was he looking for a suitable territory and environment to stay in, but other demon lords would generally choose comfortable environments that they liked. But because of the different bloodlines, what suited them was not necessarily suitable for Roy. For example, he had encountered a demon lord who was a scorpion, and his territory was purely a black and red desert. He could walk freely in the desert, but Roy did not want to stay in it.

These demon lords that Roy encountered usually found some demons of the same race to be their subordinates, but they would occasionally recruit demons from other races. However, there were generally not many of these subordinates. After all, these low-level demons were summoned from the upper levels of the Abyss. This was equivalent to turning wild demons into domesticated ones. As lords, they naturally had to be responsible for the food and shelter of their subordinates. If their territories were not big enough, they could not support these subordinates.

Therefore, demon lords usually controlled their number of subordinates. This number would range from hundreds to around a thousand. These demons would serve as a standing army and stay in the territories of the demon lords for a long time. They would mine, build buildings, operate the territories, and so on. Demon lords usually did not personally manage these low-level demons but instead handed them over to high-rank demons to manage.

That’s right. Roy had encountered this operating pattern before. Demon Lord Rogeros was not the only one who used this method. Most demon lords used this method to maintain their rule.

Only when there were territorial wars with other demon lords would the demon lords summon more demons from the upper levels of the Abyss in large numbers.

Or maybe when they wanted to punish some traitors, they would find some demons to serve as execution demons to hunt down the traitors and give them some rewards, like Roy before.

This method of ruling and management could be regarded as a relatively efficient method of rule among demons. In millions of years of history, demon lords had always used this method. Let alone the demon lords, even the low-level demons were used to it… When Roy governed his territory, he would probably follow this management method.

Keeping these things in mind, he continued to search the various spatial entrances to check one fragment world after another.

“Huh?” After some time, when Roy plunged into another spatial vortex, he was stunned when he saw the situation in this fragment world.

It was an extremely cold fragment world. The ground was full of crystallized rocks, and long icicles hung on all kinds of withered and distorted plants. A strong blizzard howled in the sky, and the plain that entered his eyes was full of whiteness, making it impossible to see too far.

Finally, he encountered another world of ice and snow. Roy felt that the temperature here was lower than that of Anivia’s territory, and the entire world had an atmosphere of deathly stillness.

Roy spread his wings and flew forward against the blizzard. He found that this fragment world was quite large, likely over ten thousand square kilometers.

This size was not too big compared to the other fragment worlds that Roy had entered, but it was not too small either. It was a lower-medium-sized fragment world. The rarest thing was that there was actually an active volcano in the center of the plain. Moreover, this volcano was buried underground, only showing a small portion on the ground. Precisely because of the existence of this volcano, the center of the plain was still relatively warm, and he even saw a few hot springs.