Many of them really were the devils of this world. Vicious creatures with the horns of dragons and covered from head to toe in sturdy scales of various colors. Others among them were part humanoid and part beast, having the torsos of beautiful women with undulating breasts but the legs and heads of spiders, or the lower bodies of men but the heads of wolves or lions, some even forewent organic body parts entirely and replaced their limbs with blades and other weapons.
Rather than living beings, they looked more like science experiments gone wrong.
However, not all of them were devils. Some of them were normal humans with eyes bloodied with rage. If one looked closely, many of them were famous figures of the past who had fallen into obscurity and then were imprisoned for one reason or another. It wasn't until today that the common people came to understand that their city lord might have had some responsibility in what happened all those years ago.